What Clari-Fi Does & How It Works

Clari-fi addresses some of the fundamental problems with compressed digital music by cleaning the audio signal coming from your MP3 player and removing many of the unwanted and potentially harmful byproducts of digital processing.  The result is a safer, less fatiguing and more pleasant overall listening experience.

Compressed digital audio (including MP3, AAC and Satellite radio) is over-processed.  Between initial analog to digital (A/D) conversion, encoding, algorithmic compression (size-reduction) and finally conversion from digital back to analogue (D/A), with each subsequent step, errors and unwanted digital byproducts (high-frequency digital transients) are added to the music.

These unwanted high-energy transients manifest in two ways: as high-end distortion and as inaudible high-energy artifacts.   Even when inaudible, these artifacts make listening to compressed digital music (like MP3s) harsh and fatiguing to the ears, especially when compared to records or uncompressed digital music (like CDs). Clari-fi addresses this problem and cleans the audio by removing distortion and digital transients that were never intended to be in the music in the first place.

Digital Transients & Hearing Damage

High-energy, high-frequency transients, when added to loud passages of music, may contribute to progressive

upper range hearing loss. While most people attribute hearing damage only to loudness, this is only half of the story. Hearing damage is actually the result of the power of the sound waves at the point they reach one's ear. The higher the frequency of sound, the more powerful it is, thus increasing its potential to cause hearing fatigue, and eventually long-term damage, even at lower volumes.  While loud sounds in close proximity have the potential to cause hearing damage, often overlooked is that high-frequency sounds have the potential to cause hearing damage at lower volumes because they contain more power. 

Hearing damage is both cumulative (prolonged exposure) and sudden (when certain thresholds are exceeded). The problem has been exacerbated with the widespread use of portable digital audio players, as people now listen to music for longer durations, typically using earbuds and in-ear monitors (IEMs) instead of traditional headphones.  Earbuds and IEMs pose an increased risk, as the deeper sound is delivered into one's ear, the potential for hearing damage increases exponentially (if earphones are twice as close, the music delivers 4x more energy to your ears).

Clari-fi protects your hearing by removing  unwanted high-energy transients from the audio resulting in up to a 50% reduction of power reaching a listener's ears (at the same perceived volume level), while allowing the music to retain its original tonal quality, and show an improvement in clarity and listenability.

WARNING

Clari-fi offers protection against the potential of hearing damage caused by high-frequency digital transients. It is not, however, intended to provide protection against the damage caused by excessively loud music. Nothing can. Please listen to music at responsible volumes.