Articles

This article examines the advantages provided by the Signia primax Narrow Directionality processing for speech understanding in background noise in four studies: Comparisons of the primax system to previous research with the binax platform, SNR benefits related to average speech understanding, and comparisons to a competitive product using Signia adaptive directional and narrow directionality processing.

The Hearing Review, May 2017

Taking advantage of the powerful computers we carry around in our purses and pockets – our smartphones – hearing instruments have just reached a new level of precision. By adding information from the motion sensors in our smartphones through Bluetooth (BT), Signia Pure 13 BT can detect the wearer’s listening situation in a much more sophisticated way.

The new Performance Guide in Connexx 8.3 is an integrated tool which recommends hearing aid performance levels that fit the patient’s needs best. It is a tool which can be used during the initial consultation, as well as after home trials.

“Direct streaming” describes transmitting an audio signal from a mobile device to a wearer’s hearing aids - without using an intermediate accessory to relay the signal. Direct streaming is the most desirable streaming technology available for hearing aids, and has become even more important because of increasing usage of smart phones.

“Connectivity” is a word that is used a lot in today’s society, and for good reason. Whether we are connecting with friends and acquaintances on Facebook, using our smartphones to connect to media and news websites, or checking the weather, the theme of connectivity plays a big part in most people’s lives.

Pure 13 BT is the first solution that marries the until-now separate worlds of hearing instruments and advanced smartphone technology to improve signal-processing. With the new myControl app from Signia, the hearing aids can access information from the wearer’s smartphone, enabling them to detect the acoustic environment and anticipate the listener’s intent and preferences more precisely than ever before. The hearing aids cannot know for certain what the wearer wants to hear, but with the movement information, they can predict it with better accuracy. In addition, the user can control their instruments, monitor their acoustic environment and, of course, stream directly from their iPhone or iPad.

Connexx 8.3 offers a new functionality called Hearing Profile designed to further individualize first fit for each patient. This feature uses a short sound quiz and questionnaire to quickly assess the cognitive functions and preferences of the patient. The resulting personal hearing profi le is combined with the patient’s audiometric data to propose one out of five first fit configurations when using primax fit. This precision first fit promotes better spontaneous acceptance and reduces the need for extensive fine tuning.

Signia TeleCare is the world’s first telehealth tool that instantly connects hearing aid wearers with their hearing care professionals (HCP). By bringing patients and professionals closer than ever before during the critical home trial period and beyond, TeleCare helps patients stay satisfied with their new hearing aids even after they leave the office, and helps HCPs save time and differentiate their practice.

The myControl app provides the wearer with a convenient way to control their Bluetooth directstreaming hearing aid Pure 13 BT (1). The myControl app is available for Apple mobile devices (iOS 9.3 and onwards), and can be downloaded free of charge from the App Store.

The myControl app provides the wearer with a convenient way to control their Bluetooth ® directstreaming hearing aid Pure 13 BT. The myControl app is available for Apple mobile devices (iOS 9.3 and onwards), and can be downloaded free of charge from the Apple App Store.

As digital hearing aids become increasingly advanced, the spotlight often shines on signal processing features, software functionality, and connectivity capabilities, rather than the physical components. At Signia, however, we constantly seek to improve every aspect of design, engineering, and production processes to create a better hearing aid. The new Click Sleeve for Receiver-in-Canal (RIC) fittings is a seemingly simple yet effective solution which improves both wearer comfort and audiological performance.

Study shows that adding a dereverberation program found in the Signia Primax RIC, improved speech intelligibility and reduced listening effort in the majority of the listeners tested using simulated reverberation.

Tinnitus and hearing loss often go hand-in-hand. For those patients whose tinnitus is not mitigated by amplification alone, Signia hearing aids offer hearing care professionals three types of tinnitus therapy approaches to customize for each patient. Static Noise and Ocean Wave signals are both sound therapy approaches that have been proven to provide relief for many tinnitus patients, especially when combined with established therapy approaches.

A review of clinical studies from three leading hearing aid research centers show a consistent trend for the Signia primax features to significantly reduce listening effort. Moreover, research from one site revealed that speech recognition performance for hearing-impaired listeners (pure-tone average 35-60 dB) using the primax Narrow Directionality algorithm was equal to that of normal-hearing individuals for the same speech-in-noise task.

Hearing Review, February 14, 2017

Tinnitus Notch Therapy – the novel and unique alternative therapy approach to treat tonal tinnitus – is easy to fit with primax and Connexx. In addition, ample options for conventional treatment of tinnitus using different static and modulated broadband acoustic stimuli are also available. This comprehensive tinnitus treatment toolkit is a powerful asset for any hearing care professional working with tinnitus patients.

Although only a small percentage of our patients suffer from severe to profound hearing loss, designing the ideal hearing solution for them brings unique challenges. With their particular listening needs in mind, Signia has offered generations of hearing solutions with increasingly sophisticated technology.

Over decades of research, directional beamforming technology has unequivocally shown improved speech intelligibility in challenging listening environments. Signia hearing instruments, which employ audiostreaming between the two hearing aids, have the advantage of combining four microphones in to a unified system, which delivers superior directional performance, as shown in this study.

Dr. Veronika Littmann at Signia R&D, together with Dr. Harvey Dillon and his research team at NAL recently published an article on Narrow Directionality in The Hearing Review. The article reports on a study which showed that Narrow Directionality provided a significant listening advantage in a laboratory experiment comprising a frontal target speech in diffuse speech babble. For this experiment, participants with moderate hearing loss matched the intelligibility performance of a group of age-matched near-normal hearers. The range of effort incurred in listening for the hearing-impaired participants also matched that of the age-matched, near-normal hearing group.

The Hearing Review, January 2017

Signia’s Cellion primaxTM is the world’s first RIC hearing instrument featuring lithium ion rechargeable batteries, together combined with a new small wireless charger. This innovative hearing system meets patient expectations for battery usability and reliability– today and also in the future. This paper details the patient benefits and the technical advantages of this innovation.

The Hearing Review, November 29, 2016

What would you say if smartphones can even help you provide hearing care? What if there is a smartphone application which could ensure a continuous and secure communication channel between the hearing care professional (HCP) and the patient? What if during the critical hearing aid trial period, there is an app which provides continuous support to help the patient’s adjustment to the new devices? What if the HCP can easily send new settings remotely to the patient’s hearing aids as needed without the patient coming into the office? There is no need to wait any longer: Signia TeleCare has just arrived.

Modern digital hearing aids offer a huge variety of form factors, features, and wireless connectivity options that allow for individual hearing solutions. However, the price of functions like situation-based real-time processing, binaural algorithms, or streaming is an increased demand on battery performance. So far, the topic of efficient powering has received only scant attention, but this may change soon due to the many good reasons for using rechargeable batteries.

AudiologyOnline, October 19, 2016

Tinnitus affects a staggering number of individuals. Population studies conducted in six different countries reported the incidence of prolonged tinnitus varying between 4.4 and 15.1 percent for adults. One study reported 2.4 percent of the population responded “yes” to the description of tinnitus as “tinnitus plagues me all day” (Moller, 2011).

AudiologyOnline, October 13 2016

Hearing aid manufacturers’ main focus has, up until recently, been improvement of speech intelligibility. Today’s hearing aid users have much broader demands however and often cite improved music perception as a key outcome or goal. Drs Tish Ramirez and Rebecca Herbig from Signia outline the changes in technology that hearing aid manufacturers are implementing to try to address this need.

Published in ENT and Audiology News, September/October 2016, vol. 25 no. 4. ©Pinpoint Scotland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Improved understanding of speech in background noise is a common desire of hearing aid wearers, and a design goal of hearing aid manufacturers. Over the years, technology has been developed to specifically address this concern. Noise reduction algorithms contribute significantly to sound quality and reduced listening effort; directional microphone technology can substantially improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the ear of the listener.

Published in Canadian Audiologist – vol. 3, issue 3, 2016

Listening Effort is the mental exertion listeners experience trying to solve an auditory task such as understanding speech (or detecting a target among interferers). Because listening effort is influenced by the clarity of the signal, it is therefore affected by hearing loss, as well as signal degradation caused by background noise or bad sound quality.

The SpeechMaster is the core of primax. This is the engine responsible for the automation of the Universal program, and it is clinically proven to reduce listening effort for the wearer throughout the day*. More than a single feature or innovation, SpeechMaster steers a conglomerate of algorithms and processes which work in concert to achieve the goal: less listening effort.

Reverberation is the persistence of sound caused by sound waves reflected from surfaces. When the room is large or reflective enough, the reverberation mixes with the original speech source and degrades the signal quality. The EchoShield program reduces the effects of reverberation so that the sounds are clear and crisp again, reducing listening effort for the wearer.*

The primax wireless CROS solution is designed for people who have normal hearing in one ear and unaidable hearing loss in the other. Sounds from the unaidable side are received by the microphones of a CROS Pure transmitter device, processed, and wirelessly transmitted to the side with normal hearing.

While the majority of individuals with hearing impairment have hearing loss in both ears, 10% or so of this population have a unilateral condition. Of this group, for many, the impaired ear is unaidable, and this condition often is referred to as single-sided deafness.

Canadian Audiologist - vol. 3, issue 4, 2016

While we recommend easyTek as the ideal solution for use with Bluetooth phones, TwinPhone is the perfect solution for people who typically use the same nonBluetooth phones at home or at work. TwinPhone allows the wearer to hear the phone conversation in both ears without easyTek.

As a major improvement upon the binax music program, an industry benchmark, primax offers three dedicated music programs. These dedicated music programs are uniquely designed to enrich the sound quality of music and to maximize the enjoyment of music, whether the wearer is listening to recorded music, attending a live concert, or making music himself.

Depending on the acoustic situation and the context, listening can require more or less attentional and cognitive processing. This dynamic activity of the brain which accompanies and enables listening is ongoing and cumulative. And it happens regardless of how much of the speech is actually understood.

The primary goal of amplification is improving speech understanding. When listening situations become noisier or more challenging, this is even more important. However, beyond improving speech intelligibility, another indicator of the effectiveness of hearing aid fittings that has sometimes been overlooked is the cognitive demands, or listening effort required for speech understanding to take place. This is why it is important to not only improve speech understanding, but also make speech understanding easy. This is the underlying goal of the new Signia primax™ platform ― to improve speech intelligibility and reduce listening effort for the wearer.

AudiologyOnline, June 9, 2016

The Hearing Review 2016/04

The Hearing Review 2016/03

Some people cannot imagine life without music - it relaxes, inspires, and for many, completes their lives. Music has a different meaning for each person, and there are individual preferences, but most would agree that music listening should be enjoyable. This seemingly simple task easily can be undermined when hearing loss is present, as listening to just a limited part of the dynamics, or a reduced frequency range of our favorite music could significantly reduce the enjoyment of the experience.

AudiologyOnline, February 26, 2016

The Hearing Review, November 24, 2015

Canadian Audiologist – vol. 2, issue 4, 2015

The Hearing Review, October 21, 2015

Canadian Audiologist – vol. 2, issue 3, 2015

AudiologyOnline, October 12, 2015

AudiologyOnline, June 7, 2015

AudiologyOnline, June 5, 2015

AudiologyOnline, May 28, 2015

In this work we present a new method for assessment of directionality in modern hearing aids, which has the benefit of simulating both a target source and an interfering source at the same time using speech signals. We show the benefits and the limitations of the method and present measurements for different microphone modes of different manufacturers. Furthermore, a sequential index based on these measurements is introduced.

The flexible tinnitus therapy function in binax hearing instruments is now more comprehensive than ever. In addition to the static therapy noises which can be chosen from a preset or be customized in up to 20 bands by the hearing care professional, wearers can now also choose from four nature-inspired ocean wave therapy sounds.

As another world's first, binaural OneMic directionality allows even single-microphone hearing aid wearers to experience the benefits of automatic directionality.

No matter where the wearer is, Adaptive Streaming Volume automatically adapts the volume of the streamed input according to the changing background noise level so that it is always audible above the noise.

Spatial Configurator is the easy user control by which the experienced wearer can steer his hearing instruments in ambiguous situations according to his listening preferences.

Taking advantage of High Definition Sound Resolution, eWindScreen binaural in binax hearing instruments reduces the annoying effects of wind.

Inspired by how the brain localizes sound, Spatial SpeechFocus is a binaural feature enabled by the High Definition Sound Resolution offered by the binax platform. Spatial SpeechFocus offers true directionality to the front, back, or either side depending on where speech originates.

A world-first, Narrow Directionality is the first directional microphone technology proven to allow hearing impaired wearers to hear speech better in cocktailparty like situations than even those with normal hearing.*