Clari- Fi: Protecting Your Hearing

As the CD has given way to the MP3 and traditional headphones often to earbuds and IEMs, sound quality and means of listening have changed, creating a potentially higher impact on the ear’s sensors beyond the eardrum.

Digital encoding schemes like MP3, AAC and satellite radio produce unnecessary digital artifacts hidden in the sound waves, and prolonged exposure even at low volumes can be damaging to the ear’s internal hearing mechanism. The ear’s cochlea translates sounds progressively from highest frequencies at its initial entry to lowest frequencies through its length. The area most sensitive to damage is the initial entry to the cochlea. Here, susceptibility to high frequency transient forces can cause nerve damage as well as mechanical effects leading to ringing in ears (tinnitus).

Like many physical changes, hearing damage is both cumulative and sudden (when certain thresholds are exceeded).  The use of earbuds, which are acoustically monoplaner, may exacerbate the cumulative damage from these high frequencies.

Distortion resulting from digital encoding produces what is commonly referred to spikiness in the audio. These artifacts contain high-energy, high-frequency components that, when added to loud passages of music, may contribute to progressive upper range hearing loss.  As research has shown, people tend to increase the volume of distorted audio in an attempt to hear it better, so digitally encoded audio compounds the problem not only by creating damaging artifacts, but also by encouraging an increased listening volume.

Clari-fi reduces these digital artifact peaks (and the jagged edge profiles associated with them) restores a majority of the original coherency of the audio, as well as allows the listener to hear “clean” passages more easily and thus operate the portable audio device at a lower, less-damaging volume level.

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.