MAud · Acoustics and psychoacoustics

Waves to Hearing

A guided walk from the physics of a sound wave to how the ear hears it, and then to how we measure it in the clinic. Every module has listening examples with oscilloscope, FFT and spectrogram views, A/B comparisons, and questions that pop up to check what you've picked up.

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Square wave from 1 harmonic

How to use this course

Use headphones, start quiet

Sounds play through your own headphones or speakers. Start with the volume slider in the top bar low and raise it until the demos are comfortable. Output is limited to −6 dB re full scale. The binaural demos (Modules 5 and 7) need headphones.

Levels are relative

Your playback isn't calibrated, so the course never claims a dB SPL for what you hear. Demos are built so that the differences between sounds are right: A/B pairs are rms-matched unless level is what's being compared.

Views come from the sound itself

The oscilloscope, FFT and spectrogram are drawn from the exact buffer that plays. The FFT is in dB re a full-scale sine, so traces on the same plot can be compared directly.

Check yourself

Short question sets pop up as you scroll past a section or use a demo, and each module ends with a longer set. Answers are saved only in this browser, for you.