GRACE NOTES

Ever get a pair of headphones that you love for their style or comfort, but you’re just not in love with the sound profile? Sonarworks True-Fi makes it easier than ever to get “reference” studio-quality sound for over 200 headphone models.

Sonarworks is a European company that specializes in pro-audio software and acoustic calibration. It was a natural progression for them to create True-Fi Calibration Software. Engineers at Sonarworks measure and evaluate the playback response of multiple samples of a specific headphone model and create an EQ curve that is closer to “reference” quality. Basically, it creates a flatter frequency response taking into account each headphones unique sonic profile. And since Sonarworks is in the pro-audio/digital workstation world, they use studio-quality processors to create the EQ curves. After each headphones’ unique profile is created, a team of audio engineers confirm that the profile is correct.

The True-Fi desktop software lets users customize the sound even more for their personal taste and hearing profile. By selecting age and gender, the software adjusts for age-related hearing loss, and users can further customize the sound. As people have gotten accustomed to hearing more bass from their headphones, it’s simple to add that back to the “reference” sound.

When we met with the CEO of Sonarworks at the 2018 CES last January, there were only about 100 models supported. The software must be popular, because they are now up to 232 headphone profiles, and the company is going to keep pushing out new profiles as new headphones hit the market, including some gaming headsets. New and notable are the Apple Airpods, HyperX Cloud Alpha, and new models from AKG, Pioneer and Panasonic. The list keeps growing and customers aren’t charged as new models are added to the software list.

True-Fi software is available for $79 and right now, is only available for use on a computer, both Mac and PC. Perhaps even more exciting than the new models being supported is the news that in just a few weeks a mobile app will be available. No need to wait — the company also announced that the mobile app will be available to existing customers for no additional charge.

As soon as the new mobile app is released, we’ll be checking it out and posting a full review. The computer app is so easy to use, there’s little doubt the mobile version will be anything less than perfect.