SoundFocus (YC S13) Launches With an App for ‘20/20 Hearing’ (opens in new tab)

Love the idea, but it does precisely nothing for me at the moment.

I have significant hearing loss in one ear. The app doesn't seem to distinguish between ears(?) So when I try to calibrate it, I can hear practically the lowest noises on all the screens, so it doesn't really seem to do much whether I turn it on or off.

It's not uncommon for people to have one considerably worse ear; in fact, I would guess it's a lot more common for someone to have one bad ear (due to an infection or similar) than it is to have equal problems in both, though I may well be wrong about this, but even if still think it's worth considering. (Edit: I can't find specific figures comparing incidence of unilateral vs bilateral deafness, but there are certainly plenty of people out there in a similar position to me, e.g. see [0] and [1])

I'm actually in a privileged position of having the results of a professionally-taken hearing test, so I know exactly which frequencies my hearing is bad at too. But the app doesn't seem to show the results of the test it does, so I can't verify its accuracy.

Still, I hope it improves, because I've always wanted an app like this (or, more precisely, an app that would generate a custom corrective EQ curve for each ear). I'll watch with interest... Certainly won't be deleting it yet anyway, and it's nice to see the app itself being so polished.

Edit: I almost think the set-up screens are too simplified. If someone does have significant hearing problems, they'll be more than prepared to spend a few minutes setting it up if it results in a better correction (e.g. more frequency samples and one for each ear).

[0] http://www.hear-it.org/Single-sided-deafness [1] http://www.singlesideddeafness.com/ssd_report.pdf

I was expecting to be pretty underwhelmed by this app, but I have to say, I'm impressed.

My office has a pretty loud HVAC system, and it totally kills the low end when I listen with a pair of cheap Apple earbuds.

I took the little SoundFocus hearing test, turned on their EQ, and the difference was pretty pronounced. It killed a bit more high end than I would have liked (seemed to roll off after about 12k), but the lows were definitely spot-on.

I'll probably use this during my commute on the super loud city busses.

edit:

I don't actually suffer from hearing loss. I'm just picky about audio quality (former recording/mixing engineer) and have an unfortunate tendency to spend a lot of time in noisy places.

Question for the founders:

I'm completely deaf in one ear. But, I can't use normal headphones - the sound coming in on my right (bad) ear causes some health issues. As a result, I usually cut the right earbud wire entirely. This seems like a really dumb solution.

Does SoundFocus let me make all the sound come into the left earbud?

My dad recently went to the doctor for his hearing and ended up getting a hearing aid. We had joked for a few years that he needed one - but were kind of surprised when it turns out he actually did.

He told all of his friends and family about how much his hearing and in turn day-to-day life has improved since getting them. Two of my uncles and one of his friends got their ears checked and ended up getting hearing aids as well.

I believe it when I read that 1 in 5 people need one. Goodluck to the SoundFocus team!

This is really cool. I have a friend who is a very talented multi-instrumentalist but who also has hearing loss in the low frequency range. I sent him this app and look forward to finding out how / if it helps him listen to his own recorded music.

Dumb question: after completing the test, I didn't see "soundfocus autotuned" (or whatever) as an EQ option. Not sure if it is automatically applied and then you pick additional EQ settings to go on top of it, or what. Hope that makes sense

This is an interesting case of a disadvantage becoming an advantage. The CEO suffers from significant hearing loss, but that enabled him to see a huge market that most 20-something founders overlook.

Excellent and long awaited initiative! I have a genetic hearing loss on both ears. It's a bit different on both ears though. Now I use Poweramp for Android with its excellent EQ to tune the audio as good as possible after my "cookie cutter" audiogram. On my computers I use the system wide EQ "Hear" [ http://www.prosofteng.com/products/hear.php ]. One inherent flaw with all solutions I've come across so far though (as with yours?) is that EQ can't be tuned differently for each channel (left and right).

Nice idea though. But I'll have to wait for a system wide Android EQ (there is one, but it has too few bands https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.smartandro... ). Preferably combined with your hearing test based EQ (can't say much about it as I don't use an iOS device other than at work).

I love the idea of prefacing a hardware release with an app that is both useful to many people and could get some people interested in the hardware who otherwise wouldn't be. I myself am pretty sure I have perfect hearing but am interested in trying this out when I get home from work tonight.

How are you processing the sound?

Enabling the algorithm significantly reduces sibliance, and alot of details in the upper mids disappear. Drums and guitar attacks in particular. Not especially pleasing. I tried playing with the equalizer presets, and they didn't seem to exhibit the same artifacts.

Then again, I'm hardly your target audience, and I was demoing on very revealing studio headphones. I'm gonna give it a shot on my commute tomorrow with earbuds. I'm guessing it improves clarity on vocals quite a bit.

Ignoring the sound-loss test, I love this app simply because it's the only free equalizer for the iPhone that works with Spotify!