Review: Signia Pure Charge&Go IX Hearing Aids

Signia was an early mover in the in-ear hearing aid world when it released its Active Pro line two years ago, and the industry has continued to evolve dramatically since. While there are plenty more in-ear aids on the market today, Signia’s bread and butter is found in the more traditional side of the hearing aid world, with new behind-the-ear models launching regularly.

The latest of these is the Pure Charge&Go IX. The IX in the name isn’t a Roman number nine but rather shorthand for Integrated Xperience, which Signia claims is “the world’s first hearing tech platform capable of pinpointing multiple conversation partners in real time, providing unprecedented sound clarity and definition for wearers in multi-speaker scenarios.” The company says the IX is built around a wholly new platform focused on optimizing multiparty conversations in noisy environments. The ability to “process speech separate from background sounds,” the company says, means you can still inhabit your environment without overpowering dialog—tracking multiple speakers without the wearer even having to turn their head.

Signia says the hearing aids are so good they improve the listening experience even if you don’t have a hearing impairment. My hearing loss is mild but measurable—and holding steady, based on a new audiogram that was created in the process of writing this review—so I had high hopes that the days of asking for people to repeat themselves, then nodding and smiling when I didn’t catch it the second time, were soon going away.

But first, the fitting. Signia’s Pure Charge&Go IX are not over-the-counter aids and rather require a professional fitting by an audiologist; this can be done online or in person, depending on the physician. I visited a local doctor who took me through a full hearing test to create a fresh audiogram and then fitted me with the aids and adjusted their programming onsite. The entire visit took about 45 minutes.

Photograph: Signia

As noted earlier, these are classic behind-the-ear aids, and they’re not the smallest I’ve seen, weighing 2.8 grams each. The silver color scheme is dated but not offensively ugly, at least. Getting the receiver positioned in the ear canal is tricky—a problem I have with all behind-the-ear aids—and even after weeks of testing I was still spending a minute or more fiddling with them to get things seated just so each time I put them on.

Physical controls are basic, with a rocker button on the back side of each aid. Both rockers control volume universally for both hearing aids, whichever aid you use. Charging is done via the included standard magnetic case. It contains juice for about three charges, each good for 18 hours and sometimes more. It also comes with a second, case-less charger. Both connect via USB cable; a single power adapter is included in the box. My doctor included three types of ear tips to try, including closed, open, and hybrid style “vented” tips. In addition to amplifying ambient sound, the hearing aids can do double duty as streaming media earbuds and can process voice calls. As with most hearing aids, they aren’t the best at this, with a tinny quality and minimal bass response, but it beats having to take them out if you want to make a quick phone call.

Signia’s app has evolved slightly since I last used it in 2021. It remains a straightforward system, letting you adjust volume universally or by ear, tweak balance between “sharp” and “soft” (I usually preferred soft, which helped avert a cymbal-like zing on words that start with s and ch), and specify directions around you that you’d like to focus on or tune out. Various programs can be set (“live music,” “outdoor sport,” etc.), but these need to be created by a professional, though the AI-powered Signia Assistant can make minor tweaks on the fly, like making voices a bit clearer. I found the assistant to be effective, though there’s only so far it can go. For major changes you’ll need to get your doctor involved again.

Photograph: Signia

I initially found the Pure IX to be one of the least impactful hearing aids I’d tested to date. That’s both a good and a bad thing. Good in that it limits the impact of your own voice from booming in your ears and keeps the amplification of incidental noises like squeaky chairs and keyboard clacking to a minimum. These two common problems can be some of the most bothersome aspects of wearing a hearing aid, and Signia has done a great job of averting them with this model. Hiss, another common headache with hearing aids, was virtually nonexistent, even when I cranked them up to full volume.

The downside of the Pure IX aids was that, no matter how I tweaked things, they just didn’t amplify conversations for me the way Signia promised. While television and music were plenty loud and clear, I still felt like I was struggling to understand people’s speech in both quiet and noisy environments. In some cases I felt I could make out words better with the hearing aids out instead of in. The choice of eartips makes a big and individualized impact here. Signia urged me to work with closed or vented tips, but I invariably felt I could hear more clearly with the open ones.

After a couple of weeks of testing, I had a 30-minute follow-up appointment with my doctor to tweak the programming and create a “bowling” program that I could use on league nights. This appointment was spent with Signia’s in-house doctor standing by via Zoom, with the two doctors poring over advanced settings in the Signia administration app (which is not something accessible to end users) and taking a deep dive into fine-tuning.

The results were remarkable, dramatically boosting conversation volume even when bowling pins were crashing around me. The impact was actually a little jarring: My teammates’ voices had become so much louder that they sounded almost booming in comparison to my experience with the previous settings. After the reprogramming, I also noticed a very slight increase in hum and hiss, but not to the point where it felt distracting. Clearly, additional visits with the audiologist could help to fine-tune this further, but I’d recommend finding an audiologist with a robust telehealth system since the aids can be tweaked remotely, which will help save a lot of travel time.

Photograph: Signia

As Signia’s Pure IX system is not an over-the-counter option, prices remain sky-high—and far from transparent. I was able to wangle an official price range out of the company only after weeks of nagging, as I was told pricing is set by each audiologist, not the company. For Signia to be so hesitant to provide even a loose range is alarming, to the point where, for that reason alone, I would hesitate to recommend the product.

If you decide to purchase these aids, you’ll likely find a huge range of options available, from in-person to telehealth-only, with prices loosely ranging from $4,000 to $10,000 per pair. No, they aren’t cheap. Prescription aids like these will always have a place for users with severe hearing loss, but I would highly advise almost anyone to start their hearing aid journey by looking at the much more affordable over-the-counter market.