A hearing loop assistive listening system (ALS) allows those with telecoil equipped hearing aids and
cochlear implants to access the system with the simple touch of a button – no need to borrow a receiver
and headset and then return it after the event.  There’s no chance that their hearing aids might be
damaged or lost when removed to don the headset.

If they use the combination Mic/Telecoil setting on their hearing aids they can still hear and talk with
others while connected to the loop – something that’s difficult to do when wearing a headset – or they
can go strictly to the telecoil setting (turning off the hearing aid microphones) and thus eliminate
most background noise and reverberation.

The headset or earbuds loaned with an FM or IR ALS are really just miniature loudspeakers placed
over or in your ears.  They cannot customize sound to match your audiogram whereas digital hearing aids
and CIs are minature computers that customize the sound so that those frequencies you don’t hear well
get more amplification thus making words clearer and easier to identify.  This is particularly important
for those with a higher frequency hearing loss which makes it difficult to hear conversation.