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The Audeara A-01 are over-ear noise-canceling headphones that launched via Kickstarter last year and were pretty darn successful. The tagline: the “world’s first full-fidelity headphone with a built-in hearing test.” That’s right, the Audeara A-01 headphones come with a companion app that tests your hearing, in both left and right ears, and then tunes your music according. There are three levels of hearing tests you can choose from — standard (three-min test), high detail (five-min test), ultimate precision (10-min test) — depending on how much customization you want. Each test evaluates the frequencies that your ears can hear, with the longer tests simply testing your hearing with more frequencies so that A-01 headphones can get even more accurate sound. The Audeara A-01 headphones are available now for everybody.
The good: After taking the hearing tests and the audio is adjusted, the difference it makes to the audio quality is stark. It creates a sound profile that’s specific to you, and you can then tweak the amount that the audio is adjusted, but in general the “Audeara effect” makes the songs that you’re listening clear. It lowers the volume and makes the lows, mids and especially highs more crisp and accurate so that you’re hearing the music more like musicians intended. Multiple people can create different sound profiles through the app, and each profile will undoubtedly sound a little different.
The Audeara A-01s are also wireless noise-canceling headphones. You listen to them the same as you would normal Bluetooth ANC headphones, and if you don’t want the Audeara effect, you can turn that off, too. Its active noise-canceling is actually impressive, if not quite as effective what you’d find in the Bose QC35II and Sony WH-1000XM2 headphones. The A-01s are comfortable and because the audio is tuned specifically for you, you probably won’t experience the ear fatigue that’s associated with loud, harsh audio.
Who they’re for: People who want headphones that are perfectly tuned for them so that they hear songs in all their detailed glory.
Watch out for: When you first set up the headphones, you need to pair them through the Audeara app instead of just going to Settings on your phone. This process feels a little clunky, especially because the connection got dropped twice when I was first trying to pair the A-01 to my phone. If you want Audeara effect in the A-01, you have to open the app and initiate your sound profile every time you turn the headphones on; it doesn’t lock in for you. The headphones should fit most people, but my colleague who has a notoriously large head had some trouble.
