A Speaker by My Chair and a Quieter Living Room

The first thing Joanne said after I got the SIMOLIO wireless TV speaker set up was not what I expected. She did not say it sounded good. She said, "It's quiet in here." That was the whole point, and she had it exactly right. For a couple of years, the volume on our 55-inch TV in the living room had been a running argument neither of us wanted to have. She would be reading on the couch, I would be in my recliner about twelve feet from the screen, and I would keep nudging the volume up because the dialogue was getting away from me. Then she would reach for the remote and nudge it back down. We were polite about it, the way people who have been married a long time are polite. But it wore on both of us.

I am Walt Kesler, 69, a retired electrical lineman, and I have mild to moderate high-frequency hearing loss in both ears, worse on the left. Thirty-four years around line equipment and chainsaws did what that kind of work does. I do not hear dialogue the way I used to, especially soft voices and women's voices, which sit higher. Music is less of a problem for me. It is the talking on television that I lose.

I am not an audiologist and I am not going to pretend to be one. I am a user. If you are struggling to hear the TV and you have not had your hearing checked, go get it checked. That is the first step and nothing I write here replaces it. But the hearing test is not the whole answer. The test tells you what is wrong. It does not tell you how to watch the evening news with your wife in the same room, at a volume that works for both of you.

That is the problem I was trying to solve, and it is a specific one. Not "hear better," which is vague. The news comes on at six, the western comes on later, and I want to sit in my chair and follow what people are saying without Joanne having to leave the room or turn the sound down every twenty minutes.

The first thing Joanne said after I got the SIMOLIO set up was not that it sounded good. She said, "It's quiet in here."

The SIMOLIO 621D is a wireless speaker made for exactly this situation. You plug a small transmitter into the TV, usually into the audio output, and the speaker sits wherever you want it. I put mine on the side table next to my recliner. The sound comes out of the speaker right beside me, so I can hear the dialogue clearly at a volume that would be too loud if it were coming from the TV across the room. Joanne keeps the television at a level that is comfortable for her, and I keep the speaker at a level that works for me. We are both listening to the same program, and neither of us is adjusting for the other.

Setup took me maybe ten minutes, and I say that as a man who has cursed at plenty of electronics in his time. The transmitter plugs in, the speaker charges, and the two of them find each other. There is no app to download, no account to create, no Wi-Fi network to argue with. The instructions are written in plain English, which I appreciate at my age. The speaker also has Bluetooth, so I can pair my phone to it and listen to a podcast or a ballgame without tying up the TV. I have used that more than I expected.

The sound itself is clear and it is aimed at one person. That is the part that took me a few days to appreciate. A television speaker throws sound at the whole room. This speaker throws it at me. I can sit in my recliner, twelve feet from the screen, and follow every word of a western without leaning forward or asking Joanne "What did he say?" That question used to come out of my mouth several times an evening. Now it almost never does.

Joanne has noticed the difference as much as I have. She reads on the couch with the TV at a normal volume, and I listen through the speaker beside my chair. We still watch together. We just do not fight over the remote anymore. The living room is quieter for her, and the dialogue is clearer for me. That trade, one quiet room and one clear conversation, is worth more than I can easily put into words.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you came over to the house and we were sitting at the kitchen table with coffee, here is what I would tell you. First, get your hearing checked before you buy anything. I mean that. I put it off for years and I wish I had not. Second, understand that a speaker like this does not fix your hearing. It fixes the distance between you and the sound. That is a real thing, and for me it was the thing that mattered most. Third, do not expect it to sound like a home theater. It is not trying to be one. It is trying to put the dialogue where you can hear it, and it does that job well.

I would also tell you to include your spouse in the decision. The reason this worked for us is that it solved a problem we both had, not just a problem I had. Joanne wanted a quieter living room. I wanted to hear the news without straining. The SIMOLIO gave us both what we wanted, and it cost a fraction of what I assumed a solution would cost. I checked the current price on Amazon before I wrote this, and it is still reasonable. You can check today's price yourself, but the short version is that this is not a luxury purchase. It is a practical one.

One honest note before you go. The speaker is not for everyone. If you have severe hearing loss, or if your hearing loss is not mainly in the high frequencies, a TV speaker is not going to be enough, and you should talk to a professional about what will be. And if you mostly watch TV alone, you may not need this at all, because the volume is already yours to set. But if you share a living room with someone who has normal hearing, and the two of you have been dancing around the volume control, this is the kind of simple fix that makes you wonder why you did not try it sooner.