Price Each £895 | Price Pair £1695
2 year warranty included
Available in: RIC, BTE, ITC, ITE, CIC, MC
Technology rating
Bernafon Saphira 5 Hearing Aids
Available in: RIC, BTE, ITC, ITE, CIC, MC
| 2021 Update: This hearing aid is now discontinued.
The Saphira 5 is the main mid-range hearing aid currently available from Bernafon. These aids are suitable for most people with a fairly active lifestyle as they cope well with background noises but would still have some issues in the noisiest of environments.
Core features
Channel Free DSP (Digital signal processing)
Known for the natural sound quality it produces, the Saphira 5 uses the same ChannelFree processing as all of Bernafon's current range.
Speech Cue Priority
Hearing aid users don't all have the same auditory resolution abilities so the same approach for every type of hearing loss is not ideal. Some people will hear better with one type of processing setting versus another. Speech Cue Priority offers two choices of amplification strategy. "Phoneme Priority" mode concentrates on maximum audibility. "Envelope Priority" alters the speech signal less to preserve a more natural sound.
Hearing in noise
The Saphira 5 uses Adaptive Noise Reduction (ANR) and Adaptive Directionality to control the background noises you hear. Simply put, the hearing aids try to work out what sounds are relevant to you (mainly speech) and they then suppress the unwanted sounds to keep you hearing clearly in noise. The ANR in the Saphira isn't quite as effective as that in the Juna range but still works well in up to moderately noisy background noise environments.
Other features
The Saphira has many of the same features as the top model the Juna 9. These include wind noise reduction, transient noise reduction and the live music program. For a full description of these features look on the Juna 9 page here.
Connectivity
The Saphira 5 can use the Soundgate 3 Bluetooth device to connect to a variety of accessories including telephone and TV streamers. The Soundgate App is also available to download if you have a compatible iPhone.
Models
Pictured below is the full range of Saphira products along with their codes.
What it looks like