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Mobile audio gets an upgrade thanks to new Sonarworks apps

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True-fi mobile
Image used with permission by copyright holder
True-fi mobile
Image used with permission by copyright holder
True-fi mobile
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Sonarworks may not be a household name, but that doesn’t mean you’ve never benefitted from the company’s products. Since 2015, the company’s acoustic calibration software, Sonarworks Reference 4, has been in use in one of more than 30,000 recording studios globally, helping audio engineers get more accurate sound from their headphones and speakers, which means we’ve all heard music that is truer to their vision. Last year at CES, Sonarworks debuted its consumer-grade software, called True-Fi, designed to give us humble listeners a similar ability to tune our headphones, be they top-of-the-line cans, or the lowliest earbuds, so that the music they reproduce is truer to the source material.

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That first version, which we reviewed a few months later, was just for Mac and Windows machines. We were duly impressed by True-Fi’s ability to alter the sound of high-performance headphones, even if it didn’t quite accomplish as much on a set of EarPods. Still, that taste left us wanting more, especially on our phones. So it’s very fitting that exactly one year after True-Fi’s desktop debut, Sonarworks is launching its mobile version for Android and iOS.

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“Our software uses patented measurement and calibration system for ‘studio sound,’” Jānis Spoģis, vice president of consumer products at Sonarworks, said in a statement, “while also enabling users to customize their own listening preferences based on age and other parameters.”

The apps contain a database of almost 300 headphones and support all of these native audio codecs: MP3, WAV, AIFF, AAC, and ALAC (iOS) and MP3, WAV, OGG (Vorbis) and AAC (Android). It works with both wired and Bluetooth connections so you can still benefit from True-Fi even if you don’t have a headphone jack.

Sadly, True-Fi only works with your locally stored music and Spotify for the moment. Hopefully, Sonarworks will add support for more services like Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, and of course, Tidal — after all, why listen to hi-res music if your headphones aren’t properly tuned?

Sonarworks True-Fi mobile will be available for purchase later this year in the App Store and Google Play for $4 per month, or as a lifetime license for $99. Existing Sonarworks customers who already own the desktop version will receive a free upgrade option to a lifetime license for the mobile app.

Right now, however, and until the end of March, you can try the app for free in early access, and see if it’s right for you and your headphones. The demo period will be fully featured, but after that, you will have to subscribe.

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Simon Cohen
Simon Cohen
Contributing Editor, A/V
Simon Cohen covers a variety of consumer technologies, but has a special interest in audio and video products, like spatial…
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