A revolution in augmented hearing

A revolution in augmented hearing

Signia Augmented Xperience

Never miss a word

Hearing isn’t always easy. A big group of people talking at the same time, softly spoken talkers, too much background noise… Sometimes sounds blend together making it impossible to focus on what you want to hear.

Augmented Xperience changes the way your clients hear the world.

AX is the popular choice: 4 times more people prefer Signia AX hearing aids to their previous hearing aid according to a recent study.³

Our new Augmented Xperience platform is even proven to perform better than normal hearing in a tested party scenario.²

3 out of 4 wearers experience less listening effort with AX than with their previous hearing aids, according to another recent study.³ 

85% of participants performed better in a speech test with Signia AX than with their previous hearing aids. 84% reported excellent speech loudness.²*

Focus sounds

Focus sounds carry relevant information where every small detail is important, for example the speech of a conversation partner.

These sounds are processed in a highly linear, uncompressed way with emphasis on clarity and details.

This pulls speech closer to the listener so it sounds as clear as possible.

Surroundings

Surroundings contain all sounds outside the main focus placing the wearer in the correct acoustic atmosphere.

This is important to create both awareness and excitement, for example enjoying piano music and laughter in a cafe.

These sounds are processed with high spatial resolution, applying more compression and attenuation to keep them at a distance from the focus sounds.

Sudden loud sounds can be addressed more quickly than ever before to prevent them from masking focus sounds.

Augmenting reality in the wearer's favor

Two separate processors allow us to fully capture focus and surroundings independently. As a result, we can control how we recombine them. To create a greater contrast, Augmented Focus pulls focus sounds closer and places surroundings a bit further away.

This augments reality in the wearer's favor.

Three significant technological innovations further enhance Signia AX:

Auto EchoShield adds a new dimension of automated sound control through real-time analysis of the room acoustics in every situation. The result is an excellent hearing experience everywhere without irritating echoes or blurred sounds.

When the wearers’ own voice is detected, our newly developed Own Voice Processing 2.0 fully dedicates one processor to handle that signal while the other processor controls the acoustic environment. In this way, the wearer’s own voice sounds even more natural to prevent any distraction.

And the new HandsFree feature lets the wearer use their hearing aids for hands-free calls via Bluetooth® with their iPhone in different environments - even noisy ones. This gives them more freedom to combine mobile phone calls with other activities or to listen to music/podcasts via their hearing aids.

Experience a range of audiological innovations

A range of innovative technologies combine to deliver this unprecedent augmented hearing experience:

NEW Auto EchoSheild

Via an additional sensor, Auto EchoShield creates a cleaner, more immersive environment by ensuring reverberation and sudden loud noises are neutralized instantly before they become an issue. Seamlessly integrated into the split processing of AX, Auto EchoShield lets wearers enjoy an excellent listening experience with outstanding speech clarity in every room and environment. The effects of reverberation in atriums, hallways, lecture halls and other large rooms are reduced.  
 

NEW
Own Voice Processing 2.0

The newly developed Own Voice Processing 2.0 harnesses the AX platform’s dual processing power to process the wearer’s own voice completely independently from all other sounds better than ever. When the wearer’s own voice is detected via its unique pathway, one processor handles the wearer’s voice, while the other processor controls the environment without having to compromise between the two. This is possible for both closed and open fittings.

NEW
HandsFree

HandsFree is a further feature that builds on the patented split processing of the AX platform. It uses Bluetooth® to allow the wearer to use their hearing aids for hands-free calls with their iPhone in different environments - even noisy ones. This gives them more freedom to combine mobile phone calls with other activities or to listen to music/podcasts via their hearing aids. By using the processing power of AX, background noise is reduced, allowing the hearing aid wearer to hear clearly what is being said on the phone. The hearing aid’s built-in microphone lets conversation partners hear the wearer’s voice in high quality.

e2e wireless 4.0 – A great leap for true binaural hearing

Our new ear-to-ear (e2e) system e2e 4.0 syncs more binaural audio data than ever, ensuring clearer speech processing and high-precision directional awareness. It also significantly boosts the speed of data transmission, delivering a much smoother sound experience and inaudible shifts between different settings. Latency is reduced by 60% so that transitions between different modes are no longer audible.

Increased input dynamic range

The microphones and the state-of-the-art analogue input stage can handle signals up to 117dB with great sound quality. That’s very close to the full capacity of human ears and ensures a clean crisp signal, for example at music concerts.

TruEar 360

The powerful processing engine allows for an exceptional TruEar 360 mic mode that better reproduces and emphasises the capabilities of the natural pinna-effect better than ever. TruEar 360 highlights the difference between front and back sources of sound to make localisation of sound sources easier.

Own Voice Processing (OVP)

OVP processes the wearer’s own voice completely independently from all other sounds, including all other voices. This allows you to fine-tune the hearing aids for optimal audibility of the entire acoustic environment without having to compromise this audibility to improve the sound quality of the wearer’s own voice.

Enhanced feedback cancellation

e2e 4.0 also synchronises feedback cancellation between the ears in the same phase, removing more artifacts for a smoother overall sound experience.

Direct streaming for iOS and Android

Augmented Xperience offers direct streaming for both iOS and ASHA-compatible Android smartphones. It handles the signal of a streaming input independently from other signals, ensuring that the sound is even clearer and easier to optimise.

Augmented Xperience hearing aids

Getting started with OVP 2.0

¹ Jensen, Pischel, Taylor, Schulte: Performance of Signia AX in At-Home Listening Situations (Signia White Paper, 2021)
² Jensen, Høydal, Branda, Weber: Augmenting Speech Recognition with a New Split-processing Paradigm (Hearing Review 2021;28(6):24-27)
*Higher than 8 (on a 0-10 scale)
³ Jensen, Powers, Haag, Lantin, Høydal: Enhancing Real-World Listening and Quality of Life with New Split-Processing Technology (AudiologyOnline, 2021)

FAQs

Signia AX will initially be available in the Pure Charge&Go AX, Pure Charge&Go T AX and CROS Pure Charge&Go AX. More form factors will follow on the Signia AX platform.
Yes.  Signia AX can connect to the Signia app which is available for both iOS and Android. Signia AX can also stream audio from iPhones, as well as from compatible Android devices via ASHA.
Augmented Focus is a revolutionary processing strategy that separates incoming signals such as speech and background noise into two categories - Focus Area and Ambient Sound - and processes them independently. The processing of Focus Area sound is designed to make speech crisp and clear with full dynamics, bringing it even closer to the listener than in real life. The Ambient Sound category is processed to attenuate background noise so that it is not intrusive, while keeping the acoustic environment intact and preserving important cues to help the wearer identify and locate sound sources.
Yes. OVP detects when the wearer is speaking and immediately shifts the processing pathway to ensure a natural, comfortable perception of the wearer's own voice.

e2e 4.0 doubles the transmission speed between the hearing aids on each ear, with transmission time between ears reduced from 5ms to 2 ms. This allows for faster, more advanced processing. The new e2e 4.0 system can now synchronize the timing of the signal processing in each ear, preserving the timing and level differences of the sounds as they arrive at each ear and allowing the brain to make use of these natural cues to better localize sounds.
The increased speed of e2e 4.0 also ensures that feedback cancellation is better synchronized between the ears for a smoother sound experience. 

The brain uses very subtle differences in the timing of sounds as they arrive at each ear to help localize the sounds.  Preserving the phase between ears means that this important timing information is kept intact and not distorted.  Traditionally, hearing aids have not been able to preserve the phase between ears, which would prevent the listener's brain from being able to fully use this important information in order to localize sounds.
The powerful processing engine of Signia AX allows an Augmented TrueEar mic mode that can reproduce and emphasize the effects of the natural pinna better than ever before, emphasizing the difference between front and back sounds to improve localization cues for hearing aid wearer.
Go to the top