Live Audio System
Explained
Summary
•
You should hear every word of the commentary and do not have to be near to
the guide.
•
For hearing impaired guests the audio system can make a huge difference.
You need to be able to take out one or both hearing aids if you wear them so
do bring their container.
•
It is better to bring you own earphones with a 3.5mm jack. If not we supply a
new pair to you but they are not high fidelity!
We continually work to improve our walking tour experience. We introduced an
audio system onto Tour No. 2 and Tour No. 3 in 2017. Both tours go through very
noisy parts of Birmingham and also visit some quiet locations.
How it works
The guide wears a microphone and transmitter and guests are given a receiver.
The tour commentary is live, but instead of the guide having to shout in noisy
places or whisper in quiet locations we can communicate with everyone as if we
are right next to them.
We encourage ‘tourists’ to bring their own earphones but can supply a new pair
which you keep at the end of the tour (£1donation to our charity).
Other benefits
We piloted our audio system in Autumn 2017 and we had a favourable response
with unexpected benefits including:
•
Hearing impaired guests really appreciated the audio system. One person
told us they expected to hear very little of the tour, but replacing their in-ear
hearing aid with our earbuds they had to put up with the whole commentary!
•
When people wander off we can keep in contact - a family decided to go to
a doughnut shop recently but we could keep in touch!
•
Keen photographers often move away from the tour group to get
interesting shots - now they can do this and still hear the full tour commentary.
Translation into another language
By using two channels on our audio system we have got technology and expertise which enables us
to present our tours in English and then immediate translation into a second language. This is ideal
for overseas groups with a single primary language. On occasions we can also provide this service
when we have mixed English and a second language on tour with us.
For example 20 German students and their teachers hear the tour directly in English and they get a
German translation. We use different systems at the moment as we fine tune this with Travis Touch
being for us a clear way forward.
A recent group with their audio units.
The audio receiver is small but sound quality is excellent.