I had Signia Pure 7AX also rebadged as Horizon 7AX in India for trial for a few days. I use Phonak Marvel 30 for last 3 years or so. So, this post is about my experience and difference I found when I trialed 7AX device.
First of all, as my existing aids are essential category and 7ax are top of the line category, the comparison between Marvel 30 and 7ax may not make sense. But to be frank enough, I feel, my Marvel 30 performs adequately to aid my hearing very well. And there was no difference between speech understanding in most situations.
However, there are situations where 7ax made a very big and noticeable difference in performance. Let me describe the scenarios:
- I live in a house which has ground and upper floor. If someone talks to me from upper floor, I would face lot of difficulty in understanding the speech. But with 7ax, it was effortless. I was absolutely stunned with the clarity of sound as it came from upper floor when some one spoke from upper floor and I could hear it very clearly.
- Impact sounds are handled very well. (But I guess any top of the line HA handles it well.)
- When someone is speaking from outside of the car window when car windows are rolled up, 7ax definitely amplified the speech and make the hearing very easy and clear.
- It’s receiver seems a bit better than Phonak in mechanical design.
- Sound of music and speech is very clear and feels it works as advertised.
Negatives of 7ax compared to Phonak
- Bluetooth feature of Phonak and simply marvelous. Signia is nowhere near Phonak. It might take them a while to come up with the technology which can match Phonak. I know it can stream to iPhone using Signia but versatility and streaming sound quality of Phonak seemed much more clearer than 7ax. Also, I can stream from any Bluetooth device using Phonak. Phonak can be truly hands free as they use device microphone. Further, Phonak keeps wearer environmentally aware when using the HA. It seems 7ax don’t use environmental sounds when using streaming.
Is it worth upgrading from Phonak base model to Signia 7AX:
Yes.
Is it worth upgrading from Phonak top of the line to Signia 7AX:
No. Reason bluetooth. And Phonak Marvel/ Paradise are equally good as 7ax. It may not be worth upgrading.
Let me know if you have any questions. I though this post would be useful as there are not many posts on Signia devices compared to other brands on the forum.