Hard of hearing? Airsound can help

Music should be for everyone. Whether you were born with a hearing condition or recently experienced a loss of hearing in one or both of your ears, the equipment you use to listen to music can make a big difference to your experience.

Various levels of hearing loss can affect how one would listen to music. If you’ve some manner of hearing loss, seeing a professional audiologist will help you to identify and determine the best methods and technologies for coping with your condition. However, if your hearing is only partially affected and you’re looking for ways to maximise your enjoyment of music, investing in the right sound system can make all the difference.

Why stereo isn’t the best option if you’re hard of hearing

It’s sometimes the case that a person with impaired hearing may experience an imbalance in the way they internalise sound. For example, one ear may be better at hearing than the other; in such instances, a traditional stereo setup will usually fail to deliver the best possible sound for you.

Essentially, stereo works by playing two separate audio channels through two separate speakers. Some sounds will be aligned to the left speaker, while others will be aligned to the right.

And that’s a problem when one channel is likely to prioritised over the other by the listener’s ears.

By mixing music using both speakers of a stereo setup, producers aim to create a full-sounding and well-balanced listening experience. In theory, this makes sense: if you were seeing a live band, the sounds coming from the stage would come from different directions depending on where each musician was positioned. This phenomenon is emulated in recorded music by sound engineers. They mix different parts of a track to the left and right channels, often to simulate the feeling of listening to music in a live setting.

Unfortunately, as we’ve said before, stereo sound has its limitations, especially for those who are experiencing hearing loss. If the speakers you’re listening to are in different positions, then the sound you hear will be imbalanced. You’ll hear more of the sounds that are panned to the speaker closest to you – which becomes particularly problematic if one of your ears is better at hearing than the other.

A different approach to audio

For decades, stereo has been the most popular format for recorded music; indeed, the vast majority of music is produced in stereo. However, if you’re one such person for whom stereo produces a sub par experience, you’re in luck. There’s an alternative you may have heard us talk about already.

Our founder, Ted Fletcher, had always been frustrated by the limitations of stereo. Its problems had confounded him and other audio experts for years. He was determined to find a way to deliver high quality stereo sound without requiring the listener to stand or sit in a limited location (or ‘sweet spot’) equidistant between the left and right speakers.

Ted’s eureka moment arrived when he created a loudspeaker box with forward facing and side-firing speakers. By pushing the channels of a recording through three speakers instead of two and pumping the sound in all directions, he was able to create a wide, all-encompassing sound field that allows every sound in a recording to be heard – regardless of where you listen to in relation to the speaker.

This technology, which Ted calls ‘Airsound’, is built into every Orbitsound product. It allows anyone to enjoy perfect studio-quality sound in their home. Rather than having to place multiple expensive speakers throughout each room in your home, Airsound provides consistently brilliant audio quality, without requiring you to stand or sit in the sweet spot.

If you’re hard of hearing, Airsound has the potential to significantly improve the way you experience and enjoy music. The three-channel soundfield delivered by Orbitsound products means you’ll hear sounds from the left and right channels with equal clarity, resulting in a richer and more balanced sound than a multi-speaker system can provide.

If you feel you are hearing an imbalanced sound from your multi-speaker set-up and are looking for a sound system that better suits your needs, browse through Orbitsound’s range of innovative Airsound speakers to find the ideal solution. For example, our latest product, the DOCK E30, utilises Airsound alongside some of the most future facing features we’ve ever included in one of our systems. Feel free to check it out here!