We need to talk about hearing aids

[Hearingbroadway3]

Posted: 4/28/22 at 11:08am

I've been to 50+ shows in the past few years, but I have never had the sound issues I've experienced this week.

Of the four plays I saw, three of them had significant feedback and reverberation due to hearing aids and/or assist devices. They make a harsh ringing sound that echoes throughout the theater. All three issues lasted at least a half hour, and one lasted the entire first half of Hangmen!

I'm not quite sure what the problem is. As far as I can tell, it may be related to someone wearing hearing aids being beside someone with an assistive listening device, and they may interact in some way? 

Has anyone else been experiencing this issue as much as I have? Am I just unlucky? I don't think it is as nearly prevalent with musicals due to the younger demographic -- and there is much less silence to notice it too!

Broadway should be accessible to as many people as possible, but these sound issues significantly detract from the experience. Maybe there needs to be an announcement or awareness of this issue like there is for cell phones because it is much more distracting than a phone going off for 10 seconds. Perhaps it is a problem with the assist devices... I don't know. All I know is that it makes the experience much worse.

 

[imeldasturn]

Posted: 4/28/22 at 11:16am

Hearingbroadway3 said: "Maybe there needs to be an announcement."

What should they announce? They can't ask people to turn their hearing aids off

[Dan6]

Posted: 4/28/22 at 11:21am

The problem is typically someone using an assisted listening headset and not removing their own hearing aids. The staff distributing the headsets typically tells the user to be sure to remove their own hearing aids, but I've been beside several people who either forget or think somehow it will give them a double benefit. The result is always feedback. What always surprises me is that whoever is sitting next to the culprit doesn't say something to them and lets it continue.

[Hearingbroadway3]

Posted: 4/28/22 at 11:26am

Dan6 said: "The problem is typically someone using an assisted listening headset and not removing their own hearing aids. The staff distributing the headsets typically tells the user to be sure to remove their own hearing aids, but I've been beside several people who either forget or think somehow it will give them a double benefit. The result is always feedback. What always surprises me is that whoever is sitting next to the culprit doesn't say something to them and lets it continue."
Thank you for the insight!
Nearly every show has an announcement that says "please make sure your cell phone is off."

Maybe adding, "if you are wearing a hearing assist device, please make sure to remove your own hearing aids as it will create feedback" will mitigate the issue. 

Updated On: 4/28/22 at 11:26 AM

[uncageg]

Posted: 4/28/22 at 12:10pm

Hearingbroadway3 said: "Dan6 said: "The problem is typically someone using an assisted listening headset and not removing their own hearing aids. The staff distributing the headsets typically tells the user to be sure to remove their own hearing aids, but I've been beside several people who either forget or think somehow it will give them a double benefit. The result is always feedback. What always surprises me is that whoever is sitting next to the culprit doesn't say something to them and lets it continue."
Thank you for the insight!
Nearly every show has an announcement that says "please make sure your cell phone is off."

Maybe adding, "if you are wearing a hearing assist device, please make sure to remove your own hearing aids as it will create feedback" will mitigate the issue."

I would suspect they don't do that because people are told at the stand where they get them to take hearing aids out before using the devices.

 

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 4/28/22 at 1:01pm

Maybe adding, "if you are wearing a hearing assist device, please make sure to remove your own hearing aids as it will create feedback" will mitigate the issue."

That will never happen because it affects so few people. Perhaps your hearing is the issue?

 

Updated On: 4/28/22 at 01:01 PM

[thedrybandit]

Posted: 4/28/22 at 1:20pm

Sutton Ross said: "Maybe adding, "if you are wearing a hearing assist device, please make sure to remove your own hearing aids as it will create feedback" will mitigate the issue."

That will never happen because it affects so few people. Perhaps your hearing is the issue?"

If people can hear it from many rows away, it's affecting a lot of people. Not advocating for or against an announcement, but the feedback gets very loud.

[dearalanaaaa]

Posted: 4/28/22 at 1:26pm

I think I'm misreading the post- so you (a hearing aid user) want others to stop using their hearing aids so yours give less feedback? or you use the theatre hearing aids, and hear feedback from others with the same ones? I'm not sure how this is the theatres fault other than their need for newer/fixed  hearing aids rather than people who use their own aids and have the volume on far too loud, causing feedback. how would they be heard over the theatre speakers without a mic? can somebody explain this in less sophisticated terminology because I'm not sure how an announcement could fix this if it's audience behavior

[Hearingbroadway3]

Posted: 4/28/22 at 1:40pm

I do not use hearing aids.

The feedback echoes throughout the entire theater. The entire orchestra can hear it -- it is very disruptive. And like I said, it has happened at 3/4 plays I've been at, for *at least* 30 mins.

Updated On: 4/28/22 at 01:40 PM

[JSquared2]

Posted: 4/28/22 at 1:46pm

Hearingbroadway3 said: "I do not use hearing aids.

The feedback echoes throughout the entire theater. The entire orchestra can hear it -- it is very disruptive. 

 

Judging from the responses so far, that does not seem to even remotely be the case.  

 

[thedrybandit]

Posted: 4/28/22 at 1:48pm

dearalanaaaa said: "I think I'm misreading the post- so you (a hearing aid user) want others to stop using their hearing aids so yours give less feedback? or you use the theatre hearing aids, and hear feedback from others with the same ones? I'm not sure how this is the theatres fault other than their need for newer/fixed hearing aids rather than people who use their own aids and have the volume on far too loud, causing feedback. how would they be heard over the theatre speakers without a mic? can somebody explain this in less sophisticated terminology because I'm not sure how an announcement could fix this if it's audience behavior"

Some hearing aid users put the theater's hearing system on top of their own hearing aids, which means they're blasting sound into their own hearing aids, which causes feedback. This comes in the form of a very high pitched whine, that may be above the hearing aid users' hearing range, but travels quite far in the space and is both very loud and very distracting to those in the theater around them, in quite a large bubble centered around the person with the issue.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 4/28/22 at 3:05pm

In all the years I've been going to the theater, I've only heard feedback from hearing devices one or two times.

[Dan6]

Posted: 4/28/22 at 3:16pm

Dollypop said: "In all the years I've been going to the theater, I've only heard feedback from hearing devices one or two times."

I've experienced it at least a dozen times over the years...sometimes for an entire act...and agree with the OP that it's a horrible and distracting noise that can really ruin a theater experience. Each time I've been at least several rows away, or sometimes in the mezzanine when the noise was coming from the orchestra (or vice versa). And because it's hard to isolate a precise location, there's really nothing that an usher can do. I just wish whoever is sitting next to the offender would tap them and ask them to remove their hearing aids. 

[KJisgroovy]

Posted: 4/28/22 at 3:31pm

I'm sort of surprised that such frequent theater goers haven't encountered this more often. Lucky folks! But it's not the hearing aids or the listening devices or even the theaters. As others have said, if you wear a listening device and also have a hearing aid they will create feedback when they interact.

My partner gets listening devices at every Broadway show we attend and there's never been an associate who hasn't told him to remove or turn off his hearing aid before using the listening device. Not one. If you're hearing feedback, it's because someone has decided not to turn off/remove their hearing aid. Or they've forgotten. I'm surprised you're reporting the sound went on for so long. Any experienced usher will know exactly what the sound is and it's odd no one stepped in to address the issue. 

It's just like cellphones. There are already systems and reminders in place to prevent the problem. Unfortunately, I don't think much else can be done when someone doesn't comply. 

[morosco]

Posted: 4/28/22 at 3:40pm

A reminder that as we grow older we all begin to gradually lose our ability to hear the higher frequencies. So the person wearing the squealing hearing aid probably has no idea that their device is squealing.

 

 

Updated On: 4/28/22 at 03:40 PM

[Dollypop]

Posted: 4/28/22 at 4:01pm

KJisgroovy said: "I'm sort of surprised that such frequent theater goers haven't encountered this more often. Lucky folks! But it's not the hearing aids or the listening devices or even the theaters. As others have said, if you wear a listening device and also have a hearing aid they will create feedback 

My partner gets listening devices at every Broadway show we attend and there's never been an associate who hasn't told him to remove or turn off his hearing aid before using the listening device. Not one. If you're hearing feedback, it's because someone has decided not to turn off/remove their hearing aid. Or they've forgotten. I'm surprised you're reporting the sound went on for so long. Any experienced usher will know exactly what the sound is and it's odd no one stepped in to address the issue.

It's just like cellphones. There are already systems and reminders in place to prevent the problem. Unfortunately, I don't think much else can be done when someone doesn't comply."

 

 

There are times when the ones accidentally go off.

A few years ago I was at the Off Bwy revival of A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS and I had a new cellphone. I THOUGHT I'd shut off the ringer but just as Thomas Moore was to be executed, my phone went off. What was my ringtone? Louis Armstrong's HELLO, DOLLY!

Several weeks later I learned the phone was defective and I got a free replacement.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 4/28/22 at 4:01pm

Updated On: 4/28/22 at 04:01 PM

[TaffyDavenport]

Posted: 4/28/22 at 4:14pm

Dollypop said: "KJisgroovy said: "It's just like cellphones. There are already systems and reminders in place to prevent the problem. Unfortunately, I don't think much else can be done when someone doesn't comply."

There are times when the ones accidentally go off.

A few years ago I was at the Off Bwy revival of A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS and I had a new cellphone. I THOUGHT I'd shut off the ringer but just as Thomas Moore was to be executed, my phone went off. What was my ringtone? Louis Armstrong's HELLO, DOLLY!

Several weeks later I learned the phone was defective and I got a free replacement."

A phone can't "accidentally go off" if it's powered down like it's supposed to be. Last night at How I Learned to Drive, Chris Meyers came out right before the show started, imploring people to turn their phones all the way off, because they've had problems with ringing at very inopportune times.

I also heard some hearing aid feedback at one point last night, and I was very worried that it would it would continue for an extended period of time, but, fortunately, it only lasted about a minute. I hadn't heard it at a show in a while, but, when I do, it's very annoying, and, last night in particular, there's no way the actors couldn't hear it, too.

Updated On: 4/28/22 at 04:14 PM

[dramamama611]

Posted: 4/28/22 at 5:47pm

I don't think I've ever experienced that.  I wonder if it's something to do with pitch - I know there times (not in a theater) when I hear a high pitch sound, but no one else around me does.  Or the way a dog hears different pitches (not meaning any disrespect).  Perhaps that's why some of us haven't experience this.

 

Also, from the way some people have talked, I would doubt someone sitting next to the guilty party  would understand that the sound (if they hear it) is coming from their neighbor.

 

But, I'm sorry for the OPs discomfort.  

[veronicamae]

Posted: 4/28/22 at 7:09pm

I have definitely been in a theater and experienced this.

Each time it's happened, I've been able to identify the patron, but always several seats and a few rows away from me, and in my experiences, it is always an older person who is struggling with how to use the device. I try to find patience and sympathy and tune it out but I do wish there was a better solution to ensure people of all ages and techie levels use them without trouble.