Meta-Earplugs Reduce Booming Voice Effect, Low-Frequency Rumbling Sounds

More comfortable earplugs mean increased use and lower rates of hearing loss.

Left: Artificial head with metal plate in place of the ear in a lab setting. Right: Person with long hair wearing a gray Meta-earplug in their ear, with a black speaker mounted on a stand in a testing room.

The authors tested the 3D-printed meta-earplug on an artificial head and a group of human participants, demonstrating an effective reduction in low-frequency sound. Credit: Carillo et al.

WASHINGTON, April 28, 2026 — Workplace hearing loss is one of the most common work-related illnesses. While hearing loss is preventable with earplugs, they can be uncomfortable, and users often remove them despite the risks. Low-frequency sounds, such as rumbling traffic and warehouse vibrations, are especially difficult to address because differences in ear physiology allow sound to leak into ears, despite protection from earplugs.

Traditional earplugs also make the user’s voice sound booming and hollow, known as the occlusion effect. It is caused by vocal vibrations that travel through bones and build up pressure on the eardrum when the ear canal is blocked with an earplug.

In the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, published by AIP Publishing, researchers at…click to read more

From: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Article: Voice clones are easier to understand in noise than their human originals: the voice cloning intelligibility benefit
DOI: 10.1121/10.0043161

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AI Voices Are Easier to Understand than Human Voices

Only a few seconds of sampling is enough to create an AI copy of a person’s voice, and researchers are unsure why they are so intelligible.

Illustration of a female singer projecting sound waves with glowing stars symbolizing vocal excellence.

Voice clones, which can recreate a human’s speech using only a few seconds of recorded speech, are more intelligible in noisy environments, research finds. AIP

WASHINGTON, April 21, 2026 — Synthetic voices are increasingly a part of our lives, from digital assistants like Siri and Alexa to automated telemarketers and answering machines. With the expansion of generative AI, a new type of synthetic voice has been developed: voice clones, which can recreate a facsimile of a person’s voice from only a few seconds of recorded speech.

In JASA, published on behalf of the Acoustical Society of America by AIP Publishing, a pair of researchers from University College London and the University of Roehampton evaluated the…click to read more

From: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Article: Voice clones are easier to understand in noise than their human originals: the voice cloning intelligibility benefit
DOI: 10.1121/10.0043094

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Closing Your Eyes Might Not Help You Hear Better After All

In noisy environments, study participants with their eyes closed struggled to hear faint sounds audible to their open-eyed counterparts.

Research participants listened for faint sounds over audio noise. They could hear those sounds much better when they could open their eyes and watch videos or even still photos matching the sounds they were trying to hear. Credit: Yu Huang

WASHINGTON, March 17, 2026 — Most people will close their eyes when trying to concentrate on a faint sound. Many of us have been told that keeping our eyes closed helps us hear better — that it frees up our brains’ processing abilities and increases our auditory sensitivity. However, that strategy may sometimes backfire, particularly in environments with a lot of loud background noise.

In JASA, published on behalf of the Acoustical Society of America by AIP Publishing, researchers from Shanghai Jiao Tong University tested whether a…click to read more

From: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Article: Visual engagement modulates cortical criticality and auditory target detection thresholds in noisy soundscapes
DOI: 10.1121/10.0042380

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How the Color of a Theater Affects Sound Perception

Brighter colors lead to a warmer ‘tone,’ according to listeners.

Image stills from the various colors of concert halls that were tested on listeners. Credit: Drouzas et al.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24, 2026 — Live music can engage more than just one sense, despite it being an auditory medium. Lighting and visual effects can enhance the listening experience, but it is unclear if they can also affect the impression of the sound.

In JASA, published on behalf of the Acoustical Society of America by AIP Publishing, researchers from Germany’s Technical University of Berlin found that the color of a concert hall has an impact on the sound perception of…click to read more

From: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Article: The influence of the color design of auditoriums on room acoustic impression
DOI: 10.1121/10.0042275

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A Hearing Test for the World’s Rarest Sea Turtle

Little is known about how sensitive the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle is to human noises.

sea turtle

Kemp’s ridley sea turtles are among the most endangered sea turtles on the planet, residing in the highly trafficked eastern and Gulf coasts of North America. Understanding how the noise produced by human activities affects them can help inform conservation efforts. Credit: Instigator/Shanna Stawicki Photography

WASHINGTON, Feb. 3, 2026 — Kemp’s ridley sea turtles are among the most endangered species of sea turtles in the world. They reside along the east and Gulf coasts of North America, alongside some of the world’s most active shipping lanes. While the threats from fishing, pollution, and vessel collisions are well understood, it is less clear how disruptive human-caused noise is to their survival.

In JASA, published on behalf of the Acoustical Society of America by AIP Publishing, researchers from Duke University Marine Laboratory, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and North Carolina State University evaluated the…click to read more

From: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Article: Underwater hearing sensitivity of the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys kempii)
DOI: 10.1121/10.0041867

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Looking Beyond Speech Recognition To Evaluate Cochlear Implants

Sound quality from cochlear implants plays a much larger role in daily functioning and well-being.

Cochlear Implants NIH

An illustration of a cochlear implant from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders at the National Institutes of Health. Credit: NIH This image is a work of the National Institutes of Health, part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, taken or made as part of an employee’s official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain. (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cochlear_implant.jpg)

WASHINGTON, Oct. 14, 2025 – More than a million people around the world rely on cochlear implants (CIs) to hear. CI effectiveness is generally evaluated through speech recognition tests, and despite how widespread they are, CI sound quality is typically not considered an indicator of users’ quality of life.

In JASA Express Letters, published on behalf of the Acoustical Society of America by AIP Publishing, researchers from Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Ohio State University evaluated the relationships between sound quality, speech recognition, and…click to read more

From: JASA Express Letters
Article: Sound quality, not speech recognition, explains cochlear implant-related quality of life outcomes
DOI: 10.1121/10.0039069

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