Using a Sound Shark microphone to aid the hearing impaired

We love helping people.  On a few occasions we have been able to use our products to help those with severe hearing loss.  One such person was a businessman from the Boston area.   He was having difficulty hearing people clearly during business meetings.

To begin, we helped him select a Sound Shark, along with a mounting plate (shown on the right) that we had developed for attaching our 9-inch Klover MiK to large television lenses.

The next challenge was to connect the Sound Shark to the customer’s hearing aids.  As it turns out, the biggest hurdle was finding a device that would supply the plug-in power required to operate the microphone.  An inexpensive Zoom H1 recorder was ultimately selected.  The microphone was plugged into the recorder and the line level output of the recorder was connected to a device that would transmit the audio to his hearing aids via Bluetooth.

Here is the customer’s note to us:

“… it (the Sound Shark) has been a resounding success.  It took a while to find the right combination of elements.  But, your suggestion regarding the Zoom H1 Handy Portable Digital Recorder was the piece that made it work.

I now sit in meetings aiming my reasonably unobtrusive Shark at speakers as much as 40 feet away and hear them quite satisfactorily.  The Sound Shark output goes through the Zoom H1 to an Oticon Streamer, a device which sends a BlueTooth signal to my hearing aids.  I am very happy with it.  If I ever get a few minutes to look into it, I am going to try to send notes to a few hearing loss associations, telling them about my success with the Sound Shark.

Thank you very much for your help.”

Another customer is using a Sound Shark in a similar manner to be able to hear conference speakers.  This ability was critical to his career.

His wife sent this note:

“Again, thank you for your much needed help.  Your Sound Shark enabled my husband and me to be in a conference about newer, more effective ways of helping people in counseling.”