Audeara A-01 headphone: These ANC cans promise to compensate for your hearing deficits
Headphones with active noise cancelling (ANC) are nothing new. They include microphones that sample the ambient noise around you and then reproduce that sound after shifting its phase by 180 degrees and mixing it with the original. The two out-of-phase sounds cancel each other out, reducing the level that reaches your ears. This works best on steady-state, low-frequency sounds, such as the constant din of engines inside an airplane.
The Audeara A-01 is just such a headphone, and it offers a very interesting additional benefit—custom equalization tailored to your specific hearing profile. It’s a brilliant idea, and it works fairly well, at least with ANC turned on.
FEATURES
The Audeara A-01 is a circumaural (over-ear) headphone that features active noise cancelling. In addition, the built-in microphone used for ANC also lets you talk on a connected phone via the headphones.
Each closed-back earcup includes a 40mm Mylar driver, and the specified frequency response extends from 20Hz to 20kHz (no tolerance given). The 3.5mm audio input presents an impedance of 32 ohms.
The primary input, however, is Bluetooth—in this case, version 4.2. It supports the SBC, aptX, and cVc codecs and the A2DP, AVRCP, HFP, and HSP profiles. Audeara is working on adding the aptX LL and HD codecs (low latency and high definition respectively), which will be rolled out in a firmware update.
All of that is fairly standard fare for ANC Bluetooth headphones. But the A-01 also offers one unique feature. The companion Audeara app, which is freely available for Android and iOS devices, measures your individual hearing profile and uses it
