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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Someone asked me ot write up a review of the neckloop I recently started using, and I thought some of you might be interested. Let me know if there are any questions.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I would like to tell you about a new neckloop that I have found to be very beneficial. It is called the quattro 4.0 made by clearsounds. For those not familiar with what a neckloop is, it is a necklace worn around the neck that allows sound to be passed through to a hearing aid with the t-coil setting enabled. This neckloop also has a place to connect a pair of headphones and actually comes with earbuds. I presume these are meant for people who either do not have hearing aids or who have hearing aids but do not wish to use the t-coil. This loop does provide amplification as well, so in theory someone could use this with headphones successfully. The nicest thing about this neckloop is it is Bluetooth. Not only is it Bluetooth, but it supports the a2dp profile, which means it will work with voiceover on an iphone and not just phone calls. It will also work with computers that have Bluetooth built in. You can buy Bluetooth dongles to enable desktops to have Bluetooth, and so far I have had mixed results with that setup, but I am waiting to try it on a new machine because I think the machine may be the culprit. My comments are mostly positive, with a few caveats. These have not been deal breakers for me, but they may be for others. One of the nice features about this device is its ability to connect to multiple devices simultaneously. I can, for example, connect it to my iphone and computer at the same time. If I am listening to something on my computer, and I get a phone call, the loop automatically goes to the phone and I can answer or reject, etc. This is great. The problem comes in when you get a notification on your phone while listening to somethingon the computer. It appears that the loop can only handle one audio stream at a time. So if one device has control of the loop, you will probably not know the other device has tried to say something. Occasionally the sound will cut out a bit and then I can infer that the other device may want my attention. If you stop audio for about 5 seconds or so, the loop appears to drop the stream from that device and the second device can take control so to speak. This leads me to my second minor annoyance. If you don’t have audio for about five seconds or so the loop seems to disengage and go into some kind of standby mode. I suspect this is to save power. There is a minor click sound heard when audio resumes, and when using the eloquence synthesizer with Jaws part of the first syllable is cut off at times. Interestingly, sapi 5 at least on windows 8 does not exhibit this behavior. You still notice the click, but the full word is spoken. Also I have noticed that if I have the neckloop connected to my laptop and phone, if I disconnect my laptop by turning it off or putting it to sleep, I have to turn off and on the neckloop again before I can get good audio from the phone. And while there are audio prompts to let you know a device has connected or the loop is in pairing mode, an audio indication of battery status would be nice. There is an audio prompt when the battery is low. There is also included a Bluetooth microphone that sits on the back of the unit that can be taken off and given to someone in a noisy situation. I have not tried this extensively, but this could be helpful. All in all, I encourage anyone who is blind with a hearing loss to try this device if your hearing aid has a t-coil, especially if you only plan to use it with one device at a time. You can find more information at:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>http://www.clearsounds.com/product/quattro-40-adaptive-bluetooth-system <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>