Most houses end up with a hybrid: a loop for telecoil users and Auracast™ broadcast audio for everyone else, from one mix. Here’s how we handle balconies, stage spill, lip-sync and receiver fleets.
Short answer
For a house with fixed seating, we usually recommend a hearing loop plus Auracast, both fed from one assistive listening mix. The loop serves telecoil users with no delay and nothing to check out. Auracast serves compatible phones, earbuds and hearing aids, reaches the lobby and can carry audio description. Each covers the other’s gaps.
Should you do what other theaters have done? Some houses already run a loop and Auracast side by side, and national hearing-loss organizations expect the two to coexist for years. As of October 2026, iPhones can’t join an Auracast broadcast on their own and most hearing aids in use don’t support Auracast, so Auracast alone hands many telecoil users a loan receiver instead.
The ADA points the same way: a loop serving every seat removes the neckloop share of your receiver count, and Auracast doesn’t. See the ADA’s receiver and signage rules and when a loop, Auracast or both makes sense.
A theater doesn’t have one metal-loss number. A main floor on a lightly reinforced slab may take little out of the loop’s signal, while a balcony built on steel can take a lot. We test or estimate each section separately and give each its own circuit and driver.
In plain English: (1) the main floor and (2) the steel balcony each get their own loop, sized for their own metal. (3) The layout keeps the field off the stage. (4) Auracast covers both levels and the lobby.
Guess the metal loss too low and the system may fail at commissioning and need costly rework; guess too high and you pay for driver and wire you don’t need. Light reinforcement typically costs 1–3 dB at 1 kHz; standard reinforced concrete about 3–6 dB by our design software’s rule of thumb, and much more in the treble. A test loop on the balcony says nothing about the main floor, so each section is tested on its own.
Where sections meet under the balcony front, each can pass on its own and still leave a weak seam, so we design the overlap, with drivers from the same series. Layout matters as much as current: in one Hearing Loop Designer model of a theater, extending the wire into the free space around the seating raised the predicted share of seating within ±3 dB from 61% to 95%. More on how we choose a loop layout and verify it to IEC 60118-4.
A loop’s field doesn’t stop at the front row. Electric guitar and bass pickups on a close stage can hear it and play the house mix back through their amplifiers, so the layout has to keep the field off the stage. A low-spill phased array usually does that better than a simple loop with a cancellation loop bolted on.
In a phased array, currents in neighboring wires oppose each other, which holds the field over the seats and lets it fall away quickly past the edge. A cancellation loop is an extra loop at one edge, driven against the main one. Sized as a fixed fraction of the main loop, it is often wrong; near a close stage it can make spill worse; and bolted onto an array that already spills little, it notches the listening area.
No IEC requirement covers spill. Where a project sets a target, our default pass mark is −32 dB re 400 mA/m at the agreed boundary, and at commissioning we listen to a guitar plugged in on stage as well as reading the meter.
When a cancellation loop is the right tool, we fine-tune it on site: one person reads the meter while two move the loop’s edge until spill drops furthest.
Steady 1 kHz test tone, set below program level; about 20 in (0.5 m) of slack in the wire at each side.
A loop is effectively instant. Auracast adds a few tens of milliseconds, depending on the settings; we measure it at handover. At 40 ms, that’s the time sound takes to travel about 45 feet. That’s fine for most seats, provided Auracast is fed before any loudspeaker delay. Fed after it, the two delays add up, and the stream can trail what patrons see on stage.
In plain English: fed before the delay, Auracast reaches this seat ahead of the sound from the stage speakers. Fed after it, the stream trails the stage by more than a tenth of a second.
Balcony loudspeakers are usually delayed to line up with the stage. Feed Auracast after that delay and the two add up, putting the stream more than a tenth of a second behind the actors’ lips. The fix costs nothing: take the assistive listening feed from a console output before any delay.
Give assistive listening its own mix: a dedicated console send or matrix output with dialogue and vocals forward, taken before any delay. On a Dante network, Dante-equipped Auracast transmitters can take that mix directly, and most loop drivers take it through a Dante-to-analog interface. Auracast can also carry audio description or a second language as separate broadcasts.
If your AV integrator or consultant is running the project, we can work under them as their loop and Auracast subcontractor.
Under the 2010 ADA Standards, an 800-seat house needs 30 loan receivers, and 8 of them must work with hearing aids through neckloops. A loop that serves every seat removes that neckloop requirement; Auracast doesn’t reduce the total. Either way, the fleet needs charging, cleaning, a sign-out routine and staff who know how to help.
| Loan receivers | With neckloops | With a loop serving every seat | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 300 seats | 12 | 3 | 12; neckloops not required |
| 500 seats | 20 | 5 | 20; neckloops not required |
| 800 seats | 30 | 8 | 30; neckloops not required |
| 1,200 seats | 39 | 10 | 39; neckloops not required |
| 2,000 seats | 55 | 14 | 55; neckloops not required |
Front of house makes or breaks the fleet: receivers charged before every performance, neckloops and ushers who can explain the telecoil program, signs at the box office with the hearing-loss symbol and your broadcast name, and a quick check of every unit before doors open.
As of October 2026, venue receivers cost about $335–377 each, so the fleet is a real budget line. For other seat counts, use the ADA receiver calculator.
Auracast reaches places a loop doesn’t: the lobby before curtain, an overflow or education room, the bar at intermission. Patrons also need to know it’s there. Register your venue with the Bluetooth SIG’s free Auracast location registration, which isn’t required but licenses its official signage; turn on the matching Google attributes; and say on your accessibility page exactly how to join.
Most theaters install in a dark period, often the summer. Loop work typically takes one to four days, longer for a large house with saw-cutting or several sections, and Auracast adds about a day. Survey and design should happen months earlier, so equipment, drawings and any floor work are ready when the last show closes.
For a summer install: survey and metal-loss testing by early spring, design approved by spring, installation when the season ends, and an Auracast walk test with an audience at the first performances.
Theaters and performing arts centers are among the venue types David Harmon has worked in over more than 15 years, primarily as a specialist subcontractor on projects led by established hearing-loop firms. His recent Auracast work, also mostly as a subcontractor, includes a large performing arts venue. We don’t name venues.
David designs, measures and commissions every Equal Access Audio system himself. Loops are measured against IEC 60118-4 at handover, Auracast is walk-tested and documented, and you keep the report.
Usually, yes, with its own design. Steel absorbs a loop’s signal, especially the treble, so a steel balcony needs a measured or carefully estimated metal-loss figure, often more driver current and sometimes a different layout from the main floor. It gets its own circuit and its own test. Guessing the loss too low is the expensive mistake.
It can, if the field reaches the stage, because guitar and bass pickups respond to magnetic fields. The fix is the layout: a low-spill phased array keeps the field over the seats and lets it fall away before the stage. We check it at commissioning with a meter and an instrument plugged in. Turning the loop down doesn’t solve it.
Yes, in the US. The 2010 ADA Standards count receivers by seating capacity, and in our reading patrons’ own phones and hearing aids don’t reduce that count. Auracast receivers can be your fleet, with neckloops on a quarter of them. A loop that serves every seat removes the neckloop requirement, not the receivers. General information, not legal advice.
Yes. Each is a separate broadcast that listeners choose by name, and a two-channel transmitter can carry the main mix plus one more. A describer’s microphone needs a preamp or a console channel first. Every extra broadcast uses radio airtime, so we plan them alongside the other 2.4 GHz traffic in the building, including your Wi-Fi.
Yes. We can design the loop and Auracast parts of their project, commission the finished system, or both, and your relationship stays with them. A sound system refresh is often the easiest time to add assistive listening, because console outputs and cable paths are being reworked anyway.
Send your seating plan, your console and when your dark period falls. You’ll hear back from David within 2 business days.