Sonarworks Launches Desktop PC App for Personal Headphone Sound Profiles

Sonarworks, a recording studio software company, announced SoundID Listen, a desktop computer application that allows users to personalize headphone sound using a personal sound profile. Over 2020, users will be able to take their SoundIDs to mobile devices and across streaming, social or music database platforms and devices to ensure a “consistent personalized sound experience,” said the company Tuesday. The SoundID profile is a user’s “personal asset” that’s stored in the cloud and can be used to connect to different SoundID-enabled devices, it said. SoundIDs are created based on calibrating headphones to deliver sound the way an artist intended in the studio, a user’s unique hearing ability and her listening preferences. Sonarworks is offering 60 days free of “personalized listening”; the monthly fee is $4.99. A Sonarworks survey of more than 39,000 participants showed no more than 17% preferred the sound of one headphone model, it said. In early testing of SoundID technology, over 80% of blind test participants preferred their personalized sound over the sound of their headphones without SoundID technology, it said.