Adventures of the Hearing Impaired

How to remain calm during a hybrid Zoom meeting

My left ear is useless. My right ear ain’t so good. I wear the hearing aid in the right ear. But still…

What you will read here is my rant about Zoom meetings in rooms that were built before there was such an animal. Unless you are in a corporate setting, most meetings I tend that are hybrid, have issues for the hearing impaired. In truth, they have issues for everyone when it comes to quality.

I have a portable microphone that I take with me so that I can hear the weak voiced in a room. The sounds goes directly into my hearing aid. Nonetheless, when it comes to meetings in a conference room, it is the speakers either attached to the computer, or a blue tooth device, that I must grapple with. As my friend and audio engineer, BC, would tell ya, its all in the quality of the equipment, that will make or break an event. Ditto with Zoom, it all depends on the equipment that is being used.

Most folks do not have good equipment.

One of the theatre directors I work with is quite annoyed with the idea of always having to mic her actors. She said something to the effect of people not knowing what the human voice sounds like anymore, because they are so used to hearing the actors through the technology of sound systems. Back in the days of Shakespeare, actors knew how to project their voices. However, the Greeks used technology. What else do you expect from the people who gave us fabulous philosophy and the trireme? They also gave us the megaphone. And stilts.

I suppose we can argue whether or not

the Greeks were the first to augment their actors voice, therefore they used a sound system…

That aside, the new world of hybrid Zoom meetings has opened up a real can of worms. A technical can of worms. Lights, camera, action, and what sort of microphone are you using? If you have invested in a quality mic, good for you. Cheap mic? No one wants to listen to you. Cheap stuff in a hybrid meeting? Someone save me from humanity.

Here’s the deal. If you have hybrid meetings you need to spend a few bucks on good speakers. And a microphone. How much? Not less than a couple of hundred for both. Because for the hearing, cheap speakers sound cheap. And for those of us wearing an aid? Cheap speakers are hell. This is so because they do not come with a subwoofer.

Speaking of hell and hearing aids, try deciphering the talk that comes out from a wearer of a mask. Want to descend to the 4th level of mush land?* Try listening to a young woman, wearing a mask, standing behind one of those plexiglass windows. Such a sweet person, with a voice soft as silk, and I could understand about every 4th word. I haven’t had that much fun since I stopped at a tavern one night, in the Highlands of Scotland, to ask for directions.

My director friend is so right. So too, is BC.

The spoken language is sounds that have meaning. The meaning comes to us via the “articulators:” the mouth, tongue, teeth and lips. When we are infants, we don’t know what the sounds mean, until we begin to put the word, love, together with mom hugging us. Thus we begin the journey of communication. If the listener cannot decipher the various sounds, communication has failed. The mask hampers communications. And it is not about volume, but articulation. When the articulation is softened, we, the hearing impaired, are at a loss as to what is being said. Ditto when cheap speakers break up the natural voice.

The takeaway is this: When you wear a mask, make sure you articulate. Be crisp with your words, and energetic. As for those speakers, shell out a few bucks and get speakers with some bass. Those cheap Jam speakers are loud, but tinny. Depending on the settings of hearing aids, cheap, tinny speakers can cause feedback in the hearing aid. So please, have a little pity on the hearing impaired. We are a good 10% of the population. That means, throughout the world, 800 million people are having trouble hearing you. So speak up, and buy a good set of speakers for you video meetings.

Okay, the rant is over.

* Mush land - a place where you can hear voices but not decipher the language.