Ok, it's time for a serious conversation about some seriously unique headphones developed in Brisbane.
Warning: This review may help you hear your music more clearly than you ever thought possible and save your ears for future use… just sayin’.
If you love music and the sounds that follow you around the world, then the newly developed A-01 headphones from Audeara are going to be your new, best friend.
Developed right here in Australia, the Audeara A-01 may seem like the result of a love affair between a hearing test and a pair of headphones, but are actually the brain-child of Dr James Fielding, a doctor who started looking for a solution to the cumbersome hearing test methods used in Australia and around the world.
When you combine the Audeara A-01 headphones with their smartphone app for Android and iOS, you are able to run hearing tests that will take the information to setup your headphones for your specific hearing.
The result being an EQ curve that lowers your most easily heard frequencies for a clearer and ultimately more balanced sound that highlights music in a way that is perfect for your personal hearing.
We visit optometrists to get our eyes checked and dentists for our teeth, but most of us will rarely, if ever visit an audiologist to check the health of our ears, or to have a hearing test. This was one of the prevailing thought processes that drove Dr James Fielding to invent, build and crowdfund the Audeara A-01 headphones.
So, what are these new headphones? Well, if you take all the science away, you have a perfectly awesome pair of high-quality headphones with active noise cancelling and Bluetooth. All very nice, but Audeara magic is not about the magic of standardised standards.
Audeara headphones also include electronics that enable you to test your hearing and mould the sound of your headphones so you can hear all the sound frequencies that you would normally struggle to hear.
When you unbox your Audeara headphones, you instantly know you are opening a quality pair of headphones. The box, the case, the accessories and of course the actual headphones look and feel great in your hands.
Also included is a set of simple instructions so you can connect your headphones to your smartphone via Bluetooth and the Audeara app (my testing was on an iPhone 7+, but Audeara also works with Android devices).
Once connected, you can then run a Standard (8 beep), High Detail (16 beep) or Ultimate Precision (32 beep) hearing test. I tried all three, but could see how much more detail was gained by utilising the ultimate test.
Once you have completed your test, you are then taken to a setup page of the app so you can tune your audio profile. Having your hearing tested and the headphones setup for your specific hearing is somewhat confronting, as you really notice what you have been missing in your favourite music whether that be a seemingly new instrument or harmony.
The app lets you select what percentage of the headphone sound will be based on the test results, meaning you can adjust the mix of sound between the EQ’d Audeara test result sound and a standard, flat EQ.
This is a great feature because as mentioned above, it can be quite confronting hearing music in this way for the first time. It is unlike anything you have ever heard and takes a few minutes to really start to expose the sounds you think you know so well.
Audeara suggests working your way up to using 100% of the audio profile created by the Audeara app, but starting at either 50% or 75% will give you a soft start.
If you are a reader of scenestr, then it’s pretty safe to say that you love music, entertainment and all things noisy. But the shocking truth is that more than 20% of us are significantly affected by preventable hearing loss.
In my family, I have a brother, mother and sister who are all greatly affected by hearing loss. Watching them experience Audeara for the first time was a true highlight for me as their hearing loss has always been front of mind, but hard to do anything about.
We all need to respect and look after our ears if we want to hear conversations, music and everyday sounds as we get older.
Audeara headphones are locally invented and designed, give you a great way to protect your hearing and an opportunity to explore music on a deeper level than you ever thought possible.
So get on board now by visiting audeara.com for more details or to order a pair for yourself.
