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.