Patent ID: 8670584

Claim:
A system for assistive hearing, comprising: an earpiece for positioning at or adjacent a user's ear, said earpiece having a receiver, a volume control, and a speaker; and a transceiver in a housing that is sized to be carried in one or both hands of a user, said transceiver including at least one input for audio signals, a processor for at least one of equalizing and controlling volume related to the audio signals, and a transmitter for digitally transmitting signals from said processor, wherein said earpiece is adapted to receive and send to said speaker only digital signals from said transmitter, so that audio signals received by said input of said transceiver are transformed into sound by said speaker with no user-appreciable time lag, wherein the volume control of the earpiece is electronically connected between the receiver and the speaker and is directly adjustable by the user when receiving signals from the transmitter, and wherein said housing includes at least three external walls facing in different directions from each other, and said at least one input includes at least one respective microphone in each of the three respective walls, whereby the microphones are pointed generally in different respective directions to pick up sound coming generally from those different respective directions.