Listen Up: The Portable Personal Sound Amplifier

After watching the infomercial and having my mind filled with ridiculous claims, I eagerly purchased Listen Up: the Personal Sound Amplifier for my grandmother as a gift. I thought about how great it would be for her to hear the sounds of nature clearly from 100 feet away, to enjoy a television program with virtually no volume, or "hear a pin drop from across the room". Needless to say, it wasn't as great as advertised.

My grandmother came to me a day later asking if she was using it right. She told me she didn't hear any better; in fact if anything worse. So I decided to borrow it for a day and see for myself. That day, I declared the Listen Up infomercial the most misleading I had ever seen. Instead of serving as an amplifier, the only thing Listen Up did to the sound was add a little screeching and static to otherwise unaffected sound.

I attempted to use this in my backyard, maybe hear some birds sing or, by their claims, some leaves crackle. I turned the Sound Amplifier up, and what sounded like a bird singing from afar turned into what sounded like a dying bird over the radio.

I then tried Listen Up on my television. I turned it down nice and low, and planned to let my sound amplifier do the work. The result was slightly better on the television, but still not nearly satisfying. My television was nice and loud, the only problem was it sounded like an AM radio, which is even less enjoyable than it sounds. I'll give Listen Up one thing; it technically is an amplifier. Not a particularly useful one in any situation, but by definition, it is a sound amplifier.

Luckily, the product only cost $15, so if you are curious enough, you can go ahead and try it with limited losses. I recommend against it. My Listen Up sound amplifier is sitting on my desk, and I don't expect to have any use of it in the near future. If you can't hear, go with a hearing aide, not this piece of junk.

My rating for this product is a 1.5/5 for ineffectiveness, and an interfering static sound. The only reason I gave this product a 1.5 instead of a 1 is because technically it will making everything louder. I'm not saying it will help you to hear, because it won't, but it will be louder. Also, because it's better than plain trash, it's cheap trash at $15.