Aurisma demonstrates what a hearing loss does to sound with live audio processing and visualization tools. It can also model the experience of having tinnitus, and using hearing aids or a cochlear implant. Demonstrations can be created using custom data or with the built-in hearing loss profiles, and then shared securely.
It was built with privacy in mind: everything runs in your browser, so no one can see personal health information unless you choose to share it. There are no accounts and nothing to sign up for. Your data and audio stay on your own device.
Please be aware that this is an educational tool, and it is not diagnostic. If you're concerned about your hearing, please see a medical professional.
Why I made Aurisma
I created a hearing loss simulator because while many exist online, they only use preset audio files to demonstrate how parts of speech disappear at certain frequencies for particular types of hearing loss. I wanted to also demonstrate the effect of any given hearing loss on a chosen audio file (especially music). Many people have the impression that a hearing loss just causes sounds to be quieter, or that hearing aids will completely fix a hearing loss, when the reality is more complicated. I wanted to demonstrate that and show how I experienced daily life with and without my hearing aids.
I was born hard of hearing. My mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss was treated with hearing aids beginning at age 3, but they were essentially tiny speakers in my ear canals, optimized for conversational speech. Music came through distorted, compressed into the midrange, and stripped of its depth. I preferred to wear headphones without hearing aids in and simply turn up the volume, but it wasn't a true solution.
For years, I would modify an equalizer to boost frequencies that my audiogram said I couldn't hear. This worked well enough when I would listen on my computer in iTunes, but the iPod didn't support my custom equalizer settings. As Bluetooth rose in popularity during the mid-2000s, I wished my hearing aids could connect wirelessly too. Over a decade later, I would get my first pair of rechargeable and Bluetooth-enabled hearing aids that streamed audio from my iPhone. But they still weren't quite as comfortable or high in audio quality as a pair of headphones.
It wasn't until October 2024, when I purchased a pair of AirPods Pro 2 after they’d been FDA approved for hearing aid functionality, that I felt like being hard of hearing was factored into mainstream audio devices. I set up my AirPods and heard music in a new way through them. There were parts of songs that I hadn't heard before, even with my equalizer modification attempts. And now I didn't have to do all of that anymore, because it was simply a setting on a commercially available device. Someone had understood my experience and wanted to make it better, which is all I've really wanted.
Aurisma uses much of the same idea I had behind my equalizer modifications. It processes audio with your own device to filter the sounds into how they would be with a hearing loss.
Simulate my hearing loss
This is the profile I made from my own audiogram data. You can press play to hear how a sound reaches me without hearing aids, or open it in the simulator to try it your own music or other audio files. You can hold A/B to hear the difference between this hearing loss and normal hearing.
Get in touch
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