Sonomax Proprietary Custom Ear Fit Targets Headphone Firms

Sonomax, a Canadian firm with roots in ear protection for industrial applications, is one of the latest companies hoping to ride the wave of the surging consumer headphone market, CEO Nick Laperle told Consumer Electronics Daily. Amid a market dominated by celebrity-endorsed brands, style, color and the traditional audiophile segment, Sonomax is targeting fit as the most important element of the headphone experience, and the company introduced its Eers custom-fit product to the market last week.

"Consumers have more and more choices of headphones,” Laperle said, “but fit is something that people take for granted.” Sonomax isn’t the only company to offer a custom fit based on molding an earpiece to the ear canal, but it’s the only one to offer a do-it-yourself option. Etymotic and Westone are two veteran companies whose background in hearing aids and industrial audio products led them to the CE market, but their music earphones require an audiologist as a go-between to take impressions of the ear canal. The Sonomax tack is to include everything consumers need in the box, including a plastic headband used to hold the earpieces in place while they're being molded to each ear. “It’s instant gratification,” and the system is “very very forgiving,” Laperle said. The six-step process can be completed in as little as 5 minutes, while it takes 3-4 weeks for a product turnaround from competitors, Laperle said. The company guarantees the fit for 14 days.

Sonomax chose the unusual spelling of “Eers” because it “plays in all the languages” and it’s something that can be manipulated with trademark marketing, Laperle said. Instead of the word ear, “we wanted something to be able to build a patent on to create a brand, and you can’t trademark body parts,” he said. Concept products include Pro Eers, DJ Eers and Little Eers, he said.

Sonomax tested its fitting system in Techshowcase and Airport Wireless stores but with a salesperson to help with the fit. After the company was confident it would work as a DIY product, it began selling online. Calling errors in fitting “almost nonexistent,” Laperle said most of the 15 percent initial return rate was due to mechanical failures in the design system. Of those that weren’t mechanical, customer feedback centered on price point, sound quality, wires and finish, he said. The company incorporated suggestions into revisions for the products launched last week.

Calling Sonomax a “behind-the-scenes technology company,” Laperle said it doesn’t want a direct path to consumers beyond the introductory phase. The plan is to serve as an OEM for other headphone companies, and Sonomax is selling product now just “to show the world that this is possible,” he said. “We want the SonoFit brand to be on every earphone, Bluetooth, hearing aid and hearing protection product,” he said. Laperle’s goal is to get SonoFit “in the hands of a big marketing machine,” for a shove into the global market via grassroots efforts that other headphone companies have been successful with including BeatPort and Red Bull where people “see celebrities put on headphones.” SkullCandy will be the first brand name earphone company to launch a SonoFit product in early 2013, and the company is in talks with other brands as well, he said. SkullCandy didn’t respond to our request for product details.

The first two Eers products are priced $199 for a single-driver model and $299 for a dual-driver version. Regarding whether consumers will balk at spending $299 for a product that Laperle pegged as having a 2-3-year lifespan, he talked of the “medical grade” silicone in the earphones that “won’t lose its form.” Once the technology has hit the mass market through other brands, he envisions a SonoFit earphone selling for as low as $79. “We can’t do this for 50 cents,” he said, citing system parts including the mechanism, pump, silicone, packaging, and ear pieces. “It will take a few years to get there,” he said.

Beyond the music headphone market, Sonomax is looking toward becoming a technology platform for the electronics industry. “When you do DSP, if the earpiece isn’t perfect, then you're abusing your processing power to compensate for the fact that you can’t have a fit,” he said. With the right fit, “we can do a lot of really cool things,” he said, including a “bionic ear,” which Sonomax developed in conjunction with Ecole de Technologie Superieure (ETS) in Montreal. The bionic ear will be able to control the sound environment, he said. People walking down a loud city street could use a bionic ear to suppress ambient noise to a level that’s comfortable. Someone in the back of a theater could use bionic ear technology to boost frequencies that are hard to hear, he said. Another concept is to place a microphone in the earphone so that you can talk and hear through headphones rather than having a separate wire running from a wireless handset to a headphone.

A regulation put in place by the FDA in 2009 clears a path for devices like a bionic ear to become consumer electronics devices, Laperle noted. The FDA defines a hearing aid as a “wearable sound-amplifying device that is intended to compensate for impaired hearing” and hearing aids are subject to different types of premarket review. A Personal Sound Amplification Product, on the other hand, a new classification of auditory device, is a wearable electronic product “not intended to compensate for impaired hearing, but rather is intended for non-hearing impaired consumers to amplify sounds in the environment for a number of reasons, such as for recreational activities,” according to an FDA document. While some of the technology and functions of hearing aids and PSAPs may be similar, “the intended use of each article determines whether it is a device or an electronic product,” it said.