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Not an audio expert, but I really wonder why they need a microphone for their adaptive EQ. I understand home speakers/theatre systems need to compensate for a r

Not an audio expert, but I really wonder why they need a microphone for their adaptive EQ. I understand home speakers/theatre systems need to compensate for a room's shape and contents, but do human ear canals vary that much to need a mic? I think it's pretty neat how sophisticated this adaptive EQ system is, but tbh, I haven't noticed much difference between this mic system and the "dumb" adaptive EQ that companies like bose/ikea etc do (Basically turn up base at low volumes, down at high volume to not clip). Very cool stuff!

aidenn0 5y ago
Low frequencies are heavily affected by both how well the canal is sealed, and the volume of air that is in the (partially) sealed area. The adaptive EQ does seem slightly over-engineered; given that people tend to be forgiving of a fairly large amount of bass emphasis, you can just tune for the worst-case. However people don't generally buy Apple products to get something under engineered...
snthd 5y ago
Might be more important for noise cancellation.
whiddershins 5y ago
Ears do vary quite a bit. If you try in ears molded to your ears they can be mind blowing. In some cases a microphone will also help adapt to background noise.
shard 5y ago
> do human ear canals vary that much to need a mic? Not an expert in human ear canals, but over the years I've learned that if I am looking into a field that I am not familiar with, it's always more complicated than I expected/imagined. > "dumb" adaptive EQ that companies like bose/ikea etc do (Basically turn up base at low volumes, down at high volume to not clip) Sounds like a compander for the lower frequencies. That's technically "adaptive" to the input audio, but not adaptive to the acoustics of the output environment. I expect that to for the second type of adaption, you'd need to measure it, which would necessitate some sort of input, such s a mic.
skavi 5y ago
Bose definitely also uses a mic for their adaptive EQ. I wouldn't be surprised if Ikea did as well. IIRC they use Sonos tech.
lpasselin 5y ago
Maybe slight variations of position in the ear can be compensated?
reaperducer 5y ago
do human ear canals vary that much to need a mic? Based on the number of online complaints that AirPods slip out of people's ears, and the equal number of people saying they're rock solid, even while working out, I think the answer is "yes."
- ericbarrett 5y ago
  I've tried all three gens of AirPods and none will stay in my right ear. Same is true of the old wired earbuds. Everybody's a little bit different—sometimes on the same human!
  - jaclaz 5y ago
    With hearing aids part of the (very expensive) all-inclusive packet is - besides the hearing aids themselves and the endless sessions to fine-tune them - an actual mold of your ears. At least last time i saw the procedure the "take the mold" part could well be a DIY job, you have two small bags of (silicon/resin/whatever) A+B, you mix them together in your fingers into a small putty-like ball and then insert/press the ball in your ear, that's it. This latter procedure only takes a few minutes (time for the silicon or resin or whatever it is to harden) then a counter-mold is made and finally a final piece is produced out of the counter-mold, then it is like 10 minutes of testing and removing (if needed) the excess with a small Dremel like mini-tool. I am pretty sure that the cost of the whole operation, including materials and workmanship is below 40-50 dollars/euros and probably a lot of people would be willing to pay double that to have their earpieces (be them airpods or conventional wired ones) confortable to wear and "safe" (in the sense of not falling down at every movement) to wear when jogging or exercising. Taking the mold as DIY, then send it to a laboratory and getting back your custom made earpiece adapter could be doable, but also a complete DIY kit could be used by many, it is not anything too difficult.
- dzhiurgis 5y ago
  Strange that when making 110 million units per year they don’t bother to cover tens of millions ears more with slightly different design. Same with incredibly small mouse and bunch of other sku’s that could def be differentiated.
twobitshifter 5y ago
I worked on a product that used an in ear microphone to adjust the model used in noise cancellation on the fly. In a control theory sense, the system varies a lot so your poles can move around and need a different controller, even on the same head depending on fit. The product produced white noise to tune the model which greatly improved the noise cancellation accuracy. It’s also not just the ear canals but the rest of your skull that effects how you hear. There are apps that use machine learning to fit a model/eq to the shape of your head from a photo. I would think that actually measuring in the ear would give a more accurate representation of this.
MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
> do human ear canals vary that much to need a mic? Surprisingly, they do! It doesn't need a lot of change to have a different ear canal resonance, changing the frequency curve somewhere between 5000-7000Hz. Oluv is currently tuning Earfun IEMs to different earl canal lengths which you can then try out, and he has written some articles [0] on exactly this topic, but unfortunately its paywalled: https://www.patreon.com/oluvsgadgets/ https://www.patreon.com/oluvsgadgets/ [0] https://www.patreon.com/posts/trust-your-ear-58601998 https://www.patreon.com/posts/trust-your-ear-58601998
- MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
  Found something non-paywalled, its in German though, might need to Google translate it: http://blog.prof-x.de/2018/08/26/gehoerresonanzen/ http://blog.prof-x.de/2018/08/26/gehoerresonanzen/
nunez 5y ago
Everyone's ear canals are shaped differently, so yes, lots of variation.

aidenn0 5y ago

Low frequencies are heavily affected by both how well the canal is sealed, and the volume of air that is in the (partially) sealed area. The adaptive EQ does seem slightly over-engineered; given that people tend to be forgiving of a fairly large amount of bass emphasis, you can just tune for the worst-case. However people don't generally buy Apple products to get something under engineered...

snthd 5y ago

Might be more important for noise cancellation.

whiddershins 5y ago

Ears do vary quite a bit. If you try in ears molded to your ears they can be mind blowing. In some cases a microphone will also help adapt to background noise.

shard 5y ago

> do human ear canals vary that much to need a mic? Not an expert in human ear canals, but over the years I've learned that if I am looking into a field that I am not familiar with, it's always more complicated than I expected/imagined. > "dumb" adaptive EQ that companies like bose/ikea etc do (Basically turn up base at low volumes, down at high volume to not clip) Sounds like a compander for the lower frequencies. That's technically "adaptive" to the input audio, but not adaptive to the acoustics of the output environment. I expect that to for the second type of adaption, you'd need to measure it, which would necessitate some sort of input, such s a mic.

skavi 5y ago

Bose definitely also uses a mic for their adaptive EQ. I wouldn't be surprised if Ikea did as well. IIRC they use Sonos tech.

lpasselin 5y ago

Maybe slight variations of position in the ear can be compensated?

reaperducer 5y ago

do human ear canals vary that much to need a mic? Based on the number of online complaints that AirPods slip out of people's ears, and the equal number of people saying they're rock solid, even while working out, I think the answer is "yes."

ericbarrett 5y ago
I've tried all three gens of AirPods and none will stay in my right ear. Same is true of the old wired earbuds. Everybody's a little bit different—sometimes on the same human!
- jaclaz 5y ago
  With hearing aids part of the (very expensive) all-inclusive packet is - besides the hearing aids themselves and the endless sessions to fine-tune them - an actual mold of your ears. At least last time i saw the procedure the "take the mold" part could well be a DIY job, you have two small bags of (silicon/resin/whatever) A+B, you mix them together in your fingers into a small putty-like ball and then insert/press the ball in your ear, that's it. This latter procedure only takes a few minutes (time for the silicon or resin or whatever it is to harden) then a counter-mold is made and finally a final piece is produced out of the counter-mold, then it is like 10 minutes of testing and removing (if needed) the excess with a small Dremel like mini-tool. I am pretty sure that the cost of the whole operation, including materials and workmanship is below 40-50 dollars/euros and probably a lot of people would be willing to pay double that to have their earpieces (be them airpods or conventional wired ones) confortable to wear and "safe" (in the sense of not falling down at every movement) to wear when jogging or exercising. Taking the mold as DIY, then send it to a laboratory and getting back your custom made earpiece adapter could be doable, but also a complete DIY kit could be used by many, it is not anything too difficult.
dzhiurgis 5y ago
Strange that when making 110 million units per year they don’t bother to cover tens of millions ears more with slightly different design. Same with incredibly small mouse and bunch of other sku’s that could def be differentiated.

twobitshifter 5y ago

I worked on a product that used an in ear microphone to adjust the model used in noise cancellation on the fly. In a control theory sense, the system varies a lot so your poles can move around and need a different controller, even on the same head depending on fit. The product produced white noise to tune the model which greatly improved the noise cancellation accuracy. It’s also not just the ear canals but the rest of your skull that effects how you hear. There are apps that use machine learning to fit a model/eq to the shape of your head from a photo. I would think that actually measuring in the ear would give a more accurate representation of this.

MrBuddyCasino 5y ago

> do human ear canals vary that much to need a mic? Surprisingly, they do! It doesn't need a lot of change to have a different ear canal resonance, changing the frequency curve somewhere between 5000-7000Hz. Oluv is currently tuning Earfun IEMs to different earl canal lengths which you can then try out, and he has written some articles [0] on exactly this topic, but unfortunately its paywalled: https://www.patreon.com/oluvsgadgets/ https://www.patreon.com/oluvsgadgets/ [0] https://www.patreon.com/posts/trust-your-ear-58601998 https://www.patreon.com/posts/trust-your-ear-58601998

MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
Found something non-paywalled, its in German though, might need to Google translate it: http://blog.prof-x.de/2018/08/26/gehoerresonanzen/ http://blog.prof-x.de/2018/08/26/gehoerresonanzen/

nunez 5y ago

Everyone's ear canals are shaped differently, so yes, lots of variation.