I tried a pair of Jabra Enhance 20s and found the domes to extremely uncomfortable. I also found that they didn’t help much in a noisy restaurant. I ended up returning the Jabras and instead got a pair of Rexton Reaches. What a difference!
First, the Rexton domes are soooo much more comfortable (I’m using their sleeve shaped domes). The audio quality is also far superior on the Rextons. They sound far more natural. Also, the Rexton seems to be able to pick out a voice in a noisy situation better than the Jabras. However, I really need to try out the Rextons in a couple more noisy restaurants before rendering a final verdict on just how well it does in those situations.
I do miss the Jabra smartphone app as Jabra did a much better job of allowing a person to customize the sound and noise suppression within the app. The Jabra app is also able to save your customized settings, which the Rexton app cannot do (which is very frustrating). The Rexton app just feels very old and tired and in need of a refresh.
Bluetooth streaming sounded awful on both hearing aids, so I will just stick to my Apple Airpods when I want to listen to music or make a phone call with earbuds. It makes me wonder just how well Auracast is going to sound in the future with these hearing aids if basic bluetooth streaming sounds so awful.
I’m looking forward to trying out the directionality feature in the right situations, but I am disappointed that the feature only seems to be available in the Rexton “Automatic” mode and not in any of the other modes, including the “Noisy” mode (where I think I would most want to adjust the directionality). The Jabra app’s directionality feature did not work well for me. When I tried using the Jabra directionality feature to focus in on the person across from me in a noisy restaurant, it instead picked up and amplified other unwelcome noises (e.g. pots clanging in the kitchen) and voices that were behind and to the side of me. It was almost as if it was emphasizing everything outside the directional beam I had selected to focus in on.
The Rexton AI Assist feature for automatically tweaking settings is an interesting idea, but the app doesn’t offer any of the categories that I have wanted to explore so far (e.g. being able to get help with voices in a noisy restaurant, getting rid of hearing aid hiss, handling reverb in a echoey room, poor bluetooth streaming audio quality, etc.). I just wish that the Rexton app would catch up with the hearing aid hardware and that Rexton would put more effort into updating the app. I will report more after I have tried the hearing aids out in some more tough situations.
Thanks for your review of the Rexton verses the Jabra Enhanced 20 hearing aids. I’ve only had my Jabra hearing aids for a couple of weeks. My Costco hearing aid person just added the focus feature to the, “Hearing in Noise”, app and added the, “Music” app. I tried it the focus feature the other day in a restaurant and it was an improvement over the standard version of the app.
The sound quality seems just fine on the Jabra 20s. But these are the hearing only hearing aids I have ever used. I think that listening to streaming music through hearing aids will never be as good as the Apple AirPods. I tried the AirPods for use as hearing aids, and I was dissatisfied with them and returned them. My opinion is that hearing aids are designed to make speech sound better, and AirPods atr designed to make music sound better.
I will give the Jabras a reasonable trial before considering switching. I really like the very small size behind my ears. I find the domes comfortable once I get them inserted correctly in my ear canals.
Hey, Billy. As someone who has worked in the High-End Audio Industry for 50+ years, I have a similar experience to yours. My first HAs were Jabra Enhance 20s from Costco Canada. I soon find them unacceptable for listening to music. I kept going to my headphones for listening to live music or streaming. There is a tinny and thin sound in the highs that sounds compressed. Instead of hearing a cymbal being touched by a brush, I hear a very unpleasant zing. Fortunately, I had heard good things about Rexton, and the Reach R-Li T came out in November. I bought the Rexton’s and for about two weeks, I did very careful comparisons between the two. The conclusion is, for my use, I prefer the Rexton Reach R-Li T much more, not only for music, but for speech recognition. While the speech part is small, the listening to music part is huge. Nowadays, I listen to mainly classical and jazz music, and I am very happy that with the right HAs, I can enjoy music again. My acoustic guitars come through better too!
I went from resounds to the Rexton Reach recently. Wow, what an improvement. At your next appointment, have them bump the bass in the music program (+30% for me) and see how you like it. And the domes on the Rextons are so much better for me also.
Thanks guys, it’s great to hear these good reviews on the Rexton’s (rebranded Signia models) strangely we don’t get many, but one of my favourite brands as well👍
I agree about listening to open air music (not streaming via Bluetooth) with the Rextons. I felt like my stereo systems got a very major upgrade when I turned them on just using the standard Automatic mode. Music just sounds so much more full and rich than anything I’ve experienced with my KS7s or the Jabras. At my first Rexton fitting, I just got the automatic mode and 2 custom noise programs put in place . At my follow-up appointment in about 3 weeks, I will be adding a music program and will have the audiologist boost the bass in that mode per Vincent’s suggestion. I will also be adding a third even more aggressive noise program for very noisy restaurants.
Yeah ReSound is another favourite of mine, have used them from right back from Verso, I can easily get both sounding very similar in the same environment, it’s all in the programming ; )
Actually most HAs are, because there’s no “one” HAs made for high frequency loss, it’s not how HAs work, again all in programming.
Sorry but there’s no best for high frequency loss, your Costco fitter could not possibly know which is “best” based on your audogram! The best HAs are the ones that work for you, which you choose to be ReSound (Jabra) very nice.
I wouldn’t recommend this at all, no it’s a good place to start right here on hearingtracker, unbiased opinions and reviews, some clinics will only sell certain models/brands for all sorts of reasons, so as you say and did the right thing by trialing what was on offer and then chose the one that worked “best” for you.