Research findings are presented for the Signia AX platform, with its introduction of a new signal processing paradigm called Augmented Focus, which splits the incoming sounds into two separate signal streams. The activation of Augmented Focus showed a significant benefit for speech recognition in background noise, and when compared to leading competitors, a significant advantage also was observed. Additionally, when combined with the Signia AX binaural beamformer, speech recognition for the participants with hearing loss was significantly better than for their normal-hearing counterparts.