By Penelope Woods, MAudSt, MAudA (CCP), BMus, is a Masters Qualified Independent Audiologist and Hearing Health Advocate serving the community.
The television is loud enough for the neighbours to hear, yet the person sitting right in front of it is still asking, “What did they say?”
That moment can cause real frustration at home. It seems like a volume problem, but very often it is a clarity problem.
Louder is not always clearer.
I explain it this way. Speech is not one solid block of sound. It is made up of quick, fine details. Vowels carry much of the weight and loudness. Consonants often carry the sharper edges that make words different from each other.
That is why “fifteen” and “fifty”, or “cap” and “cat”, can be hard to tell apart even when the voice seems loud enough.
If those finer contrasts are not coming through clearly, turning the sound up may only make the blur louder.
If this is happening, you may notice it elsewhere too. At home, the television may sound loud but muddy. In the car, a partner’s voice can be heard, but whole words are missed. At the RSL, bowls, church, or a family lunch, the talk, clatter, laughter, chairs, and dishes all mix. The speech is there, but you have to fight to hear it.
It starts to make more sense when you realise hearing is not just about the ears picking up sound. It is also about how clearly speech reaches the brain so it can sort one sound from another, quickly enough to keep up. When that signal is degraded through hearing loss, people often say, “I can hear it, but I can’t catch the words.” That sentence is clinically useful because it points us beyond simple loudness.
It also explains why some people feel they hear quite well in perfect conditions. A quiet room, one familiar voice, good lighting, and no competing noise can hide a clarity problem for a while. Restaurants, phone calls, grandkids talking fast, and group conversation expose it much more quickly.
At A Better Ear, our clinical team uses both hearing tests and speech measures because they answer different questions. One tells us how soft a sound must be before it isn’t detected. The other helps show how well speech is being distinguished and understood.
If loudness does not help and conversations still feel muddy, strained, or tiring, notice that carefully. Ask, “Is it clear enough?” That question often leads to a much more useful next step.
