Thanks, this is very helpful. I think my audi just wanted an excuse to get me to try the new Signia.
After the responses here, and discussing it with my techie husband, I’ve come to the conclusion that rechargeable HA will be a good choice for me - nearly or perhaps more convenient than changing batteries.
I get the new Signia rechargeable tomorrow which I’m looking forward to trying. But I suspect I’ll end up in Oticon More.
Yeah my audiologist was saying that Oticon have long overtaken Signia… but let us know what you think
I’m in your camp here with not wanting to fiddle with changing batteries every few days. You may not think much of it before, but once you’ve used rechargeable batteries, you start to see the convenience of just being able to take out the hearing aids at night and flop them into the charger and that’s it. With the disposable batteries, you get the low battery warning chimes, always have to keep fresh batteries nearby, swap batteries every few days.
The worst is having them run low at the most inopportune time in the middle of the day when you’re at work or in a meeting. Yeah you do get a low battery warning chime, but then if you can’t get out of your meeting or are having a face to face and must put up with and ignore the incessant warning chimes, and maybe even diminished performance due to weak batteries, until you can break off from your conversation and replace them, it’s just a drag when that happens. And you have to stock spare disposable batteries everywhere, at home, at work, in the car, in your pocket/wallet/purse.
But anyway, there’s already a whole big thread about pros and cons of rechargeable vs disposable so I’ll stop beating on that dead horse here.
These screen shots are the norm for me. Now that I have used Oticon’s version of rechargeable HAs, I won’t be returning to disposables.
[EDIT/Addendum: I apologize for the redundancy of the ON screen shots. I had forgotten about my earlier post. I think I’ll let this last addition stand, just as a demonstration of consistency.]
All excellent points. Every situation you mentioned has happened to me too.
I was fitted earlier this week with the Signia AX, the new hearing aid released just a month or so ago. My audi wanted me to try them, thinking they had features I would really like for noisy situations. I still plan to try the Oticon More (I have the OPN 1 now) and Phonak Paradise.
As to the Signia AXt, I am very impressed after a few days of wearing them. Note that REM not yet performed. First some details on features. These are available now only as rechargeable, but they have 3 rechargers to choose from, the travel charger (the one I have, nice and small), a larger desk top type charger, and the charger which also has a dryer.
Signia claims to have a new way to program the AX to help with signal to noise, using two streams of sound and applying different approaches to each (go look it up if you need more tech explanations!).
The App is a real strengh compared to Oticon. You can adjust both volume and treble/bass, and directional hearing. For directional hearing, you choose to hear one or more of the 4 directional quadrants, or how narrow for frontal direction. I can’t tell this does much for me, but looks very cool! I’ll try it out some more.
My audi gave me 3 programs to start (I think you can have 6). I have Universal, Noisy Environment and Induction Loop mT.
The best feature of the app is the Signia Assistant. It starts by asking if it can help with
*My own voice
*Other voices
*Sound quality
*Handling
Once you select one, you get additional choices. Under Other Voices, you now choose
*Voices in general
*Loud or close voices
*Soft or distant voices
*Voices from the back.
In a loud restaurant, very busy and bad acoustics, I chose Voices in General. I was then asked
How does speech in general sound:
*Incomprehensible
*Too soft
*Sharp
*Too Loud
I chose incomprehensible and got back “program update” saying the assistant applied a setting to my device that “should make other voices a bit better comprehensible” (comment by me - the app’s English could be improved). I could Keep, Revert, Improve further.
I could immediately tell there was a program update, and I sometimes kept it and sometimes reverted. I tried various options as you see how vague some of these options are. But after a few tries, I was hearing much better at the loud restaurant!
The assistant also helped with a noise fan in another restaurant.
I found the Noisy Environment program very helpful with loud AC in my car, but not as good in other noise compared to the Universal program as modified by the Assistant.
Last night I was in a noisy bar for an art exhibit, and heard much better than with my Opn 1.
So for now, since I can’t compare to the More or Paradise, I am very impressed by the AX.
If my impression changes by further use, I’ll update this report.
This is great to hear. The more good HA choices the consumers have available to them to choose from, the more the consumers win.
I wonder when you said you could hear much better in a noisy bar with the Signia than the OPN 1, are your referring to hearing speech conversation? Or just overall hearing?
I would say that the open paradigm of Oticon is a trade-off in a way. Yeah, you get to hear more most of the times, but sometimes you don’t want to hear more, especially in noisy places. Yeah, they give you a Full Directional setting in the OPN 1 to match the traditional noise blocking approach, but I really can’t find much difference using it because it doesn’t block the noise aggressively enough. The OPN S and the More make this option more explicit through the Sound Booster in the ON app. But it still gives mixed result. Some people could tell a big difference, others can’t tell much difference. But at least it’s something the original OPN doesn’t have.
Lawyer, the Signia AX sounds really interesting. I’ll look forward to your updates, especially with your eventual comparison with the More.
I could hear speech better from those I was sitting with and those I talked to as I walked around to see the art.
Signia AX trial. FYI, These are rechargeable and after 15 hours, about 4 streaming, my HA are still 60% charged.
Its awkward to wrap up cord to fit in cover. I’ve charged using USB in my vehicle while camping but now the right hearing aid won’t charge at all!
What is an UP hearing aid please?
Ultra Power. For severe to profound losses.
I have been wearing Signia AX demo aid for about 3 weeks and am VERY impressed with speech in noise. I basically have stopped attending functions where there will be more than about 8 people because I could only “nod and smile.”
However, I attended a large “pot luck” dinner with the Signias and deliberately sat in the middle of a table of 10 - 12 and by using the “focus” feature, I could understand any speaker I was facing!!!
I also attended a party of about 70 in a large room with seating at tables for 8 and again, with focus feature had good success at understanding everyone at my table!!
I will be attending a large backyard Quincenera this weekend where much of the conversation will be in Spanish which I do not understand and I am looking forward to being able to pick out the conversations I CAN understand!!!
I have been playing with a lot of demo aids over the last year. Of course, NOT in noisy situations!! But my impression so far is that these are far superior for those situations!!! And the price here is reasonable!
Great to hear of your success! I’m trying out the Signia AX too and find I hear much better in noise after using the Hearing Assistant feature. But the Directional Hearing feature on the app doesn’t seem to help me much. Is that what you mean by the Focus?
Thanks for sharing, I’m watching this myself, keep everyone updated on your progress, always good to hear people’s experiences on the latest models.
I had try the phonak p90 and oticon more1 and starkey livio ai 2400. I think oticon more1 is better than phone p90 in the Big supermarket.
And what about the Starkey Livio AI 2400? Where does it stand? Thanks.
I think starkey livio ai 2400 the sound quality is worse than p90 and oticon more.But starkey livio ai 2400 is louder than phonak p90.I don‘t like starkey livio ai 2400.
That was because I was listening to some music from my satellite receiver. Like you I have thousands tied up my my stereo (got some great deals when I lived in Germany) I just listen to the satellite once in a while when I feel like listening to some music I don’t have, and I am doing something else at the time to.
