How does signal reception on a S6 active compare with the S5?

Hey! I have a S5. Signal reception is terrible. I live 7 miles from the tower and typically only have 1 bar in the house and shop. I had S3 before and with that I had 3 or 4 bars. I'm looking at switching to a S5 Active or S6 Active. I've been told they have better signal receivers. Anyone familier with this??

That may be normal. Comparing phone to phone for "bars" isn't a real good way to judge a signal. You would need to check how your S3 and S5 show signal via the connection info (in "dBm" measurements). You could lay multiple phones next to each other, on the same network, and they could all show different bars even with the same signal due to how the phone is programmed to calculate it.