CES 2019 • TABlog

by Marc Mickelson | January 25, 2019

onarWorks is one of several companies adding sonic value to headphone listening through some form of digital signal processing. In Sonarworks' case, that means software for calibrating transducers -- speakers and headphones. The company's initial product, Reference 4, was a package -- software along with a calibrated microphone -- meant for pro users who want to take the sound of their mixing studio with them, replicating various parameters for other speakers and headphones. The company's latest product, True-Fi, is strictly for consumers. It's an iOS/Android mobile app that provides calibration for nearly 300 headphone models, and it supports playback of many native file formats, including .mp3, .wav, .aiff, .aac and .alac for iOS; and .mp3, .wav, .ogg (Vorbis) and .aac for Android. True-Fi costs $3.99 per month, or $99 for a lifetime license. Existing customers of the Sonarworks' Reference 4 can upgrade to a lifetime True-Fi license for free.

Janis Spogis of Sonarworks explained in detail the company's technology, after which a demo of Sonarworks' initial product commenced.

The ability of the Sonarworks software to replicate the sound of speakers in space -- via headphones or speakers -- was surprising. The utility of this for mixing music recorded in several venues would be invaluable.

Next up was a demonstration of True-Fi with multiple pairs of headphones. Setup and calibration were easy. The app walks the user through a series of screens that provide binary choices, after which the user's preferred sound profile is calculated. True-Fi also allows the user to apply age-related hearing-loss compensation and gender-based adjustments in order to create a user-specific, custom profile.

After calibration is complete, the profile is available use with all headphones Sonarworks has measured, including many upper-end audiophile models from the likes of Sennheiser, Focal and Audeze. But, even if you don't own one of these sets of 'phones, the app will replicate the sound of them with any of the 300 sets of headphones in the Sonarworks database. And that isn't just a claim -- I can attest to True-Fi's effectiveness, as I tried three sets of headphones and all sounded largely identical with the app engaged, and completely different without it. One set, in fact, sounded dreadful without True-Fi but largely like the others with the app.

We audiophiles have a latent mistrust of anything that changes the musical signal, purity über alles. I'm reflexively in this camp to be sure, but I have to admit to being very impressed with Sonarworks' True-Fi. If my source for headphone listening was an iOS or Android device, I'd have it installed in a heartbeat, because it simply makes listening -- even to lesser pairs of headphones -- a better experience. I'm curious to see where True-Fi goes from here.