Auracast Hearing Aids Previewed in New York City

As everyone who has seen my previous posts knows, I’ve been doing Auracast demos for some time. I even created a large venue demo at the ACAud conference in May, transmitting my voice throughout the auditorium with the collaboration of Audeara. But I had never experienced Auracast in a large venue as a user, and certainly not with music. Therefore, I was more than happy to accept an invitation from GN ReSound to participate in a one-night trial at the Lincoln Center in New York using Nexia hearing aids.

Broadcasting a single voice is one thing, but how would it sound with a large orchestra? Amazingly well as it turned out.

Tuning into a great experience

A key part of the demo was showing phone-independent Auracast tuning. This cannot be over-emphasized: Even if a phone does not itself support LE Audio and Auracast, it can be used to tune a properly designed hearing aid or earbud. The point was well-proven using my burner iPhone 11 I keep around purely for testing iOS apps. (My daily phone is a Samsung GS23.)

For the Lincoln Center demo, GN made available a beta version of their app for iOS which is not yet publicly released. It has all the features of the production Nexia app plus Auracast tuning. Loaded in advance and tested at home, I was ready to go.

Instant assistive listening in small group settings

The event began with a gathering of the participants to meet composer Richard Einhorn, whose work Voices of Light would be performed that evening in a sold-out concert at the Lincoln Center. Set in the beautiful but loud Empire Hotel rooftop lounge, it would have been difficult at best to hear Richard speak if he had not been wearing GN ReSound’s clip-on Multi-Mic+ with Auracast. The difference between that and a typical partner mic is that anyone with an Auracast-compatible hearing aid or earbud could have tuned in.

It's also extremely easy to use, no installation required. Wearing the Nexias with Richard's transmission tuned in, listening went from a stressful experience to an interesting and engaging time. Many kinds of smaller group settings such as a fitness class could benefit from the same easy implementation.

The acid test: Live music

Then it was off to the Lincoln Center. Though most of the audience had no idea, the GN team had mounted one of their Auracast TV streamers in the ceiling of the venue. Microphones were placed on stage to capture and broadcast in stereo what would normally have been an unplugged performance. This was a serious endeavor to pull off; kudos to Richard for arranging it with the Lincoln Center and the GN team for pulling it off.

And pull it off they did. As the concert began, I tuned in the broadcast. For the first few minutes I experimented with the settings. It didn’t take very long to figure out that the Nexias were best set to music mode and with all noise reduction turned off. I listened with the hearing aid mics muted and Auracast set to a comfortable level. The sound quality was very good but rather like listening to a studio album. The room acoustics were for the most part missing. Going in the opposite direction and muting Auracast, the sense of a live performance was there but for me the music was lacking vibrancy.

A little slice of Heaven

Then I dialed in both in equal measure. Wow! The music positively came alive. All this was in the first five minutes or so. Once I had my settings, I sat back and enjoyed the concert. That is very much to the point. I quickly forgot I was even using Auracast, which is how it should be. There was no latency effect or obvious artifacts to remind me that I was streaming, and the music was so natural that I could just immerse myself in what was a stunning performance by the New York Choral Society and the Mannes Orchestra.

As familiar as I am with Auracast, it was still a shock how good it was in this setting. Auracast is truly the future of assistive listening.