Jabra Enhance Select 500

Editor's note: The following real user review was written by David Cochran, a retired design director. He was not paid by Jabra to conduct this review, but did receive a free pair of Enhance Select 500 hearing aids from the company. HearingTracker has asked David for his honest feedback and to do his best to stay impartial. "HearingTracker Score", "Expert Review", and "Sound Performance Lab Results" are produced by HearAdviser Audiologist Dr. Steve Taddei, AuD.

Jabra Enhance Select 500: User Review by an Experienced Hearing Aid Wearer

My experience with the Jabra Enhance Select 500 over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids was overwhelmingly positive. I'll get to what I liked and disliked about it, but first some basics.

With a price tag of $1,995 or $1,795, depending on if you opt for the Premium or Basic Care & Protection Package respectively, Jabra Enhance Select 500 is a mini receiver-in-canal (RIC) model and the flagship hearing aid in the Jabra Enhance Select product family. Jabra Enhance Select 500 was introduced in May 2024, knocking Jabra Enhance Select 300 off its throne and into the middle of Jabra's product offerings, while the Jabra Enhance Select 50R rounds out the line as the "economy / basic" pick.

Jabra Enhance hearing aids are manufactured by the Denmark-based GN group, one of the world's largest hearing aid companies which also makes the ReSound and Beltone brands. Jabra Enhance Select, as its name implies, gives you a selection of advanced OTC options. GN has positioned the Select line roughly between the Jabra Enhance Pro premium prescription hearing aids dispensed by hearing care professionals at Costco for about $1,600 per pair and the completely DIY approach of the Jabra Enhance Plus OTC hearing aid for $800, which comes with more limited support but a lower price tag.

I selected the pricier (by $200) Premium Care & Protection Package, which includes an initial online fitting by a hearing care professional, 3 years of remote follow-up care, and a 3-year warranty. HearingTracker recommends choosing the Premium package in its review of the Select 300 and Select 50R, where audiologist Steve Taddei, AuD, shows the significant acoustic advantages of an online pro fitting and expressed disappointment that Jabra even offers a Basic Package with this type of high-end device.

As with all OTC hearing aids, Jabra Enhance is designed to help people with mild-to-moderate hearing loss. If you're unsure of your level of hearing loss, you should consider a hearing test from a hearing care professional so you can obtain an audiogram. There are also some good online hearing screening tests.

My Review of the Jabra Enhance Select 500

If you order a Jabra Enhance Select 500 hearing aid from the Jabra Enhance website, you have 100 days to return it; if you don't like it, you can get a full refund, no questions asked, as long as you return it within that time. I took the hearing test on the Jabra website and then ordered the hearing aids. About a week later, my package arrived with the hearing aids programmed with my hearing profile.

Unboxing the hearing aid

As I’ve noted in a previous review for HearingTracker, I’m a former design director, so I pay close attention to packaging and presentation. In this case, the packaging was very impressive. Jabra even has a little magnetic clasp that opens the hearing aid box. Similarly, the documentation was good, and the contents were well packaged in little plastic envelopes containing a cleaning brush, a generous assortment of silicone ear cones, wax filters, and a charging cord and plug.

The first thing I did was charge the hearing aids. I was very impressed to learn that the charging case was an electromagnetic induction charger. That means no fussing around with metal contacts that have to be lined up just right to make a connection. As the hearing aids charged, I downloaded the Jabra App for my smartphone.

Becoming acquainted with the device while charging

While charging, I sat down to read the research I had put together over the previous month. The  Enhance Select 500 are Jabra’s tiniest, lightest, and most advanced hearing aids. They are 25% smaller than standard RIC aids and 15% smaller than Jabra's mid-level Select 300 devices. Suitable for busy, noisy places such as restaurants, cafés, boardrooms, offices, and urban streets, they are equipped with proprietary speech-clarity technology that allows you to hear your conversation without ambient noise taking over.

They also refine the depth of sound so you know where sounds are coming from to stay oriented and alert. These hearing aids allow for ​advanced personalization features, including customizable noise filtering and automatic gain control, which automatically adjusts the volume to your preference.

Additionally, they have the latest Bluetooth LE Audio, which allows for hands-free phone calls or direct audio from venues and transit centers. This means they are also ready for Auracast, a new broadcasting technology that should become a huge bonus for anyone with an Auracast-enabled hearing aid or earbud (think of it as a kind of WiFi system for any kind of audio transmission, including TVs, airports, lecture halls, arenas, etc.).

Jabra hearing aids include SoundScape

SoundScape™ technology prioritizes speech and reduces background noise, so sound is preserved in even the most complex listening situations, such as hearing multiple people speaking in a noisy workplace. The technology combines 3 advanced features:

• Advanced hearing in noise - Speech-enhancing capabilities deliver more natural sound through smart microphones and a powerful processing chip.
• True depth of sound - More natural, immersive sound in one-on-one conversations, and enhanced spatial awareness to accurately perceive where sounds are coming from.
• Advanced acoustics - Comfortably and automatically adapts to reduce background noise with built-in noise-canceling technology.

Trying on the hearing aids

After the charging was completed, I tried on the hearing aids. My first impression was that they were the smallest and lightest hearing aids I had ever put into my ears. They were also very comfortable. The silicone domes that come standard with the hearing aids were small and open / vented (allowing unamplified sound to pass through the dome and mix with amplified sound in the ear canal).

Inside the kit of accessories, Jabra gives you a measuring device that helps you calibrate the length of speaker wire you need for your ears. Mine was spot on. I turned on the app and entered my password to access my account.

By the way, this is important! Jabra has a list of smartphones and other devices on its website that are compatible with its hearing aids. Check and make sure your phone is on it! I have a new phone that’s not on it. Luckily, the phone is compatible with the app. It took a little while for Bluetooth to connect, but it eventually did.

Opening the Jabra App for the first time was very impressive. The layout was very organized. It has four settings or programs, each with its own custom equalizer built in.

Everything is at your fingertips, from tutorials to requesting a personal interview with an audiologist. There is also a quick chat feature and a direct email feature, and you can call their 800 number for help at any time.

Putting the Jabra Enhance Select 500 hearing aids through their paces

I started right away to put my hearing aids through all their paces. I registered a calendar date through the app for a consultation with one of Jabra's audiologists to go over my hearing test and make some tweaks. The dates were a little far out, but Jabra said they are hiring more audiologists. They’re also going to add more people to their chat platform for help.

It was about 3 weeks before I had my session with Jabra's audiologist through Zoom. She went over the hearing aids from top to bottom, talked about my hearing test results, and made some slight changes. After our meeting, she emailed me that the changes had been made. All I had to do was go into the app and download them to my hearing aids using Bluetooth.

The neat thing is if I didn’t like the changes, I could always roll them back to their state before the download.

My thoughts about the Jabra Enhance Select 500 hearing aids

I'm 74 years old and retired. One of my favorite hobbies is birdwatching, so being able to hear well in the high frequencies is pretty important to me. I've owned eight hearing aids in my lifetime, costing from $8,000 down to $700.

The Jabra Enhance Select 500 hearing aids at almost $2,000 are the smallest, lightest, and clearest hearing aids I've ever owned!

After wearing the hearing aids for a couple of weeks I was really impressed with the music mode. In the past, hearing aids I owned made music sound very tinny. The Jabra 500 is the only one that gives me a very realistic sound. I also play guitar. In the past I would have to take my hearing aids out to tune and play. Not anymore! With these little gems I can wear them all the time.

An overnight charge gives me an operating time from 7:00 am to 11:00 pm at night. The charging case holds 3 full charges on its own.

Jabra Enhance Select 500 can be controlled with an onboard button or the Jabra Enhance app. You can answer or end calls using tap controls, which can be a bit hard to master.

The only downside for me is because I have the latest Android operating system, the phone call answering and music streaming do not work! But I don’t have any problems downloading updates and tweaks to my hearing profile.

To tell you the truth, between all the adjustments you can make to these hearing aids, if I couldn’t download updates I would still keep these hearing aids—that’s how much I like them!

Final verdict

I have never owned hearing aids of this quality before. The Jabra Enhance Select 500s are the smallest and lightest behind-the-ear hearing aids I have ever experienced, hands down. The wireless technology and speech-in-noise processing found inside these devices appear to draw heavily from ReSound's flagship Nexia hearing aids.

The only thing I can complain about is how long it took to get an appointment with an audiologist. But Jabra said they’re working on that.

I still would give them 5 stars.

As noted above, the only real consideration is the price of Jabra Enhance Select 500 relative to other OTC and prescription hearing aids. With a price tag of about $1,800-$2,000, it is actually slightly more expensive than the Jabra Enhance Pro hearing aids, which come with in-person care from a hearing aid specialist or audiologist at Costco. Similarly, you can generally buy a set of basic hearing aids from independent hearing care practices or clinics for around $2,000 if you insist on that price.

However, as a high-quality alternative, Jabra Enhance Select 500 remains far less expensive than most prescription hearing aids with comparable technology—devices that can cost between $4,500-$8,000.

My experience with the Jabra Enhance Select 500 suggests it's an excellent value for people who are at least minimally tech-savvy, comfortable with online telecare (video conferencing), and prefer the convenience of at-home adjustments.