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Question

Dual Volume Control Headphones for the Hearing Impaired

Jul 11, 2012 2:53AM PDT

I hope I have posted this in the right place.

I have been looking for a long time for a pair of earphones with dual volume controls. This used to be a fairly common thing but now all the manufacturers seem to have stopped making them! What has happened? Does anyone know please why these ear phones are no longer being made, and what do people such as myself do when we have less than perfect hearing and the range is different in each ear?

To be specific, I need these so that I can hear the dialogue when watching movies on my Kindle Fire. Speech clarity is more important to me than music quality. I would prefer over the ear rather than in the ear.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Thank you.

Discussion is locked

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Clarification Request
Dual as in two headphones with independant control?
Jul 14, 2012 2:03AM PDT

For that I use a splitter and then the usual headphones with the volume controls.

And since any decent technician could make something custom since there is no magic involved, if you wanted something custom, then have it made.
Bob

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Re: clarification
Jul 15, 2012 2:33AM PDT

In my first sentence I say I am looking for a pair of earphones with dual volume controls. Meaning, one pair of earphones with separate volume controls for the left and right ear. Usually the volume controls are on the ear pieces. or they used to be. In the good old days earphones such as these were easy to come by, Radio Shack sold them, but now for some reason the manufacturers seem to have stopped making them.

Anyway since posting before, someone kindly directed me to the Sennheiser HD65 TV which I sent for and am now trying out. They have separate volume controls, (for left and right ear) and a long extension wire to plug into the TV. The only trouble is, when the earphones are plugged into the TV it mutes it for anyone else in the room. So the long and short of it is, when watching TV either I am deaf or they are!

These earphones (for anyone else who may be interested) make speech much clearer, they do not use batteries, (thank goodness) the ear pieces are very comfortable and the volume controls are not on the earpieces they are on a switch by your hand so that you can see exactly what you are doing and regulate the volume accordingly.

The down side apart from muting the TV, is that the very long wire for TV viewing is not detachable so one is trailing the wire about and getting it tangled up when using the headphones for other things eg. Kindle Fire. This is a design fault, the wire should be detachable with a shorter wire enclosed even if it means charging more for the product, and since they are advertised for TV viewing they should be designed not to mute the television so that other people cannot view at the same time.

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Thanks for that.
Jul 15, 2012 2:39AM PDT

The TV mute issue is easy to solve by many means. It is trivial to fix if you have any background in electronics.

However some folk feel it's a design flaw. Go figure.

It's like a hood on a car that won't open without knowing where the latch is. Any good mechanic can fix that by showing where it is or bolting on something to make it easier to find, but the usual driver would call it a flaw because they are not a mechanic.

It depends on your point of view if this is a flaw or just something we need to adjust.

The next person would write it's a flaw to not mute the speakers when the headphone is plugged in!
Bob

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Not a mechanic....
Jul 15, 2012 8:25AM PDT

Could you please tell me how to do that?

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For the non-technician.
Jul 15, 2012 9:41AM PDT

An audio splitter cable from the TV with one for your headphones and the other to go to some amplified speaker bar.

About a dollar for the splitter and all over the map for the speaker set or bar.

And that was without using any technician's help!
Bob

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OK, Bob,
Jul 15, 2012 11:01PM PDT

Thanks.