Assistive Listening Knowledge Base
  • Conference paper

Requirements for mass adoption of assistive listening technology by the general public

From https://assistivelisteningknowledgebase.org/evidence/kaufmann-2023/ · record checked 9 October 2026

  • Kaufmann TB, Foroogozar M, Liss J, Berisha V
  • ICASSP 2023 Workshops, IEEE (arXiv 2303.02523)

Independent (Arizona State University)

Summary

A position paper that puts forward five likely barriers to wider use of assistive listening, including the delay between the assistive signal and loudspeaker sound, and proposes fixes.

Key findings

  • Explains the alignment delay: the assistive signal reaches the listener almost instantly, while loudspeaker sound travels at about 343 m/s (in dry air at 20 °C), so a listener about 60 m from the stage hears it about 180 ms after it leaves the loudspeakers; a listener who hears both signals, one delayed against the other, perceives a distorted signal.
  • Names the ways a listener can hear the room as well as the assistive signal: open-fit hearing aids, a hearing aid or implant program that mixes the assistive signal with the device's own microphones, and the transparency mode of headphones and earphones, which it expects Auracast to use; it assumes that more than half of hearing aids are dispensed with an open fit.
  • Describes a second copy of the signal as tending to be heard as coloration below about 5 ms, as reverberation from 5 to 30 ms and as an echo above 30 ms, citing earlier work.
  • States that most listeners find echoes intolerable at about 30 ms and that people with hearing loss tend to tolerate slightly longer delays.
  • Recommends delay compensation wherever any seat is more than about 10 m from the stage, by several broadcasts each carrying its own delay, a variable delay set in the receiver, or an ultrasound carrier.
  • Notes that the LE Audio specification does not require receivers to support a Presentation Delay above 40 ms, so many receivers may not be able to buffer enough to line up with the room sound in large venues.
  • Proposes amending the specification so receivers support a Presentation Delay of at least 500 ms and can accept a listener-specific alignment delay.
  • Cites Goehring et al. as the study behind the tolerance of about 30 ms and the longer tolerance with hearing loss (section 2.4).

Limits

No new listening data. The delay-tolerance studies it cites concern a hearing aid's own processing delay, where the device sound arrives after the direct sound, not an assistive signal that arrives before the room sound.

Read the original

arxiv.org/abs/2303.02523

Link checked . We link to the original and do not host copies.

Cited in

Cite this source

Kaufmann TB, Foroogozar M, Liss J, Berisha V. Requirements for mass adoption of assistive listening technology by the general public. ICASSP 2023 Workshops, IEEE (arXiv 2303.02523). 3 May 2023. https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.02523 (accessed 9 October 2026).

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