122 MACWORLD MARCH 2020
PLAYLIST REVIEW: AUDEARA A-01doesn’t change until you take your finger
off the slider. You can also tap a button
labeled “Can Hear” if you can hear the
beeps, which lowers the volume of the
selected frequency. If you can’t hear the
beeps, you tap the button labeled “Can’t
Hear,” which raises the volume. When you
can barely hear the beeps at a particular
frequency, you tap the button labeled
“Barely Audible,” which moves on to the
next frequency. You can also select the
frequency to adjust by tapping on its slider.
I was concerned that the phone’s
volume setting would affect the test, but it
doesn’t. The volume control is disabled
during the test, so the levels you hear are
completely consistent.
I found a few quirks in this process. For
one thing, the change in volume as you
tap the Can Hear and Can’t Hear buttons
isn’t instantaneous; it takes a moment to
catch up, which was confusing at first.
Also, holding those buttons does not
cause the slider to scroll as I expected.
As I was playing with the test, I brought
some sliders all the way to the bottom and
top of their range. When I tried to push a
slider below its minimum value, it simply
stayed there. But when I tried to push a
slider above its maximum value, the slider
disappeared and the app jumped to the
next frequency. An “X” appeared over the
missing frequency, and tapping that
brought the slider back to its maximum
value. That seems like very odd behavior; I
wish it would simply stop at the top and
not respond to attempts to increase it
further, just as it does at the low end of the
slider’s range.
When I asked Audeara about this, they
replied, “The X
represents ‘can’t
hear’ at that
particular frequency
within the testing
range of the
headphones. This
alters the way that
particular frequency
response is
incorporated into
the algorithm and
ultimate sound
Here you can see example audiograms for the three levels of precision. profile.”