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Where would we be in someone didn't point out as Claudia says if the zipper was open or a tag hanging out of a shirt - a laughingstock for others for sure.

Maybe I should have described this better. What I'm searcing for is a solution for my hearing problems with the Tauck Vox units.

Let me give a bit of background first. Many people who have hearing loss, especially older people, have the greatest loss in the high frequencies, as indicated by this sample audiogram.

What hearing aids do is boost the volume of the sound in the high frequencies compared to the boost in the low frequencies. The goal of this is to provide to the hearing-impaired person sound that is close to what they heard when they had normal hearing. This is called "equalization".

Normally, the AirPods provide sound amplified essentially the same across all frequencies. If I tried to use normal AirPods, I’d hear a lot of low frequencies and very little high frequencies.

Apple has worked with the FDA to get approval for the AirPods to be used as “over the counter hearing aids” which the FDA approved a year or so ago. Apple will provide software that does essentially what the audiologist does when s/he tests your hearing. This test will determine your loss curve - as shown in the above picture.

Based on that hearing test, the software in the AirPod will attempt to equalize the sound for your hearing loss. That’s exactly what regular hearing aids do.

So what’s great about the AirPod approach?

All the hearing aids I’ve used in the past years that included Bluetooth implemented low energy Bluetooth. And low energy devices will not connect to standard Bluetooth.

But AirPods are designed to connect to the iPhone over standard Bluetooth.

Next question: Why does that matter?

There are devices that you can plug into a standard audio output and it will generate a Bluetooth signal to send that sound to a headset – or an AirPod. Here’s a picture of a couple of those devices.

They’re designed to be used – for example – in an airplane so that you can hear a movie on your AirPods instead of wearing those large headsets that the airline provides. Or to hear sound from your computer in your AirPods and not disturb others in the same room (or an airport lounge) – if you used the speakers on your computer.

When I go on my next Tauck tour, I will plug one of the Bluetooth devices into the audio output of the Vox unit, and pair my “hearing aid” AirPods to that device. That will allow me to hear what is being said over the Vox, and have the sound be equalized to my hearing loss.

If this works, my wife will be very relieved – she won’t have to relay things to me any more .

I will report the results for the benefit of other Tauck guests here who wear hearing aids.