🔬 How this tool works — and what phase inversion means
Sound synthesis
All sounds are generated in real time inside your browser using the Web Audio API — no audio is recorded, uploaded, or stored anywhere. The tool creates pure synthesised tones and noise using the same mathematical principles as professional audio software. Nothing is transmitted over the internet.
What each control does
Frequency sets the pitch of the tone in Hertz (Hz). Most tinnitus occurs in the range of 1,000–8,000 Hz, with the most common presentation in the 3,000–6,000 Hz range following noise exposure or age-related hearing change. The slider uses a logarithmic scale, which reflects how human hearing perceives pitch.
Waveform type changes the shape of the sound wave, which alters its harmonic character. A sine wave is a pure, smooth tone with no harmonics — the simplest possible sound. A triangle wave adds faint harmonics, making it slightly warmer. A square wave produces a buzzy, hollow sound with strong odd harmonics. A sawtooth wave is the harshest, with both odd and even harmonics. White noise is random sound energy across all frequencies equally. Pink noise has more energy in lower frequencies and sounds like rushing air.
Noise blend mixes the selected waveform with noise, which is useful because most real-world tinnitus is not a perfectly pure tone — it has some roughness or bandwidth to it.
Modulation adds a slow amplitude wobble to the sound, which some people describe as their tinnitus "pulsing," "wavering," or "fluctuating." This is different from pulsatile tinnitus, which pulses with the heartbeat.
Phase inversion — what it is and why it doesn't cure tinnitus
A sound wave is a repeating cycle of pressure changes — compression and rarefaction. A 180-degree phase-inverted copy of a sound has its waveform flipped upside down: every compression peak becomes a rarefaction trough, and vice versa.
When you play a sound and its phase-inverted copy simultaneously through the same speaker or headphone channel at equal volume, the peaks of one exactly fill the troughs of the other. They sum to zero: silence. This is the principle behind active noise-cancelling headphones.
Why this cannot directly cancel tinnitus: Tinnitus is not a physical sound wave in the air. It is a pattern of abnormal neural firing in the auditory cortex — a brain event, not an acoustic event. There is no pressure wave to cancel, and no microphone you could place in the auditory cortex to measure it. Introducing an externally phase-inverted tone cannot directly oppose a neural signal. The button on this tool plays the inverted waveform for educational and experimental purposes, but makes no claim to cancel tinnitus.
There is ongoing research into acoustic neuromodulation — whether specific acoustic stimuli tuned to the tinnitus frequency can influence the neural activity generating it (notably Coordinated Reset Neuromodulation). This is a different and weaker mechanism than true phase cancellation, and the evidence remains preliminary.
The ANC headphones experiment
Once you have matched your tinnitus sound, you can play that sound aloud through a phone speaker at low volume, then put on active noise-cancelling headphones. The ANC microphones will hear the external tone and actively cancel it. The theory is that this may create some subjective interference with tinnitus perception. This is not clinically validated and the effect, if any, will vary between individuals. See the full explanation below.
These presets are based on how tinnitus has been characterised in the clinical literature. Start with whichever sounds most familiar, then refine with the controls below.
Phase Inversion — What It Is and What It Cannot Do
When a sound wave travels through air, it alternates between compression (a peak) and rarefaction (a trough). A 180-degree phase-inverted copy of that wave has every peak converted to a trough and every trough to a peak — the waveform is flipped upside down.
When the original signal and its inverted copy are played simultaneously through the same speaker at equal volume, they cancel each other to silence. This is the physical principle behind noise-cancelling headphones. It works perfectly in the acoustic domain.
The waveform visualiser above will show the inverted signal when this is active. You can observe the physics — and observe that your tinnitus continues regardless. That observation is itself informative.
There is ongoing research into acoustic neuromodulation — whether specific sounds tuned to the tinnitus frequency can influence the neural activity generating it. This is a different and much weaker mechanism than acoustic cancellation, and the evidence remains at an early stage.
Play the sound first, then enable this. The external tone will cancel itself acoustically — your internal tinnitus will not.
The Active Noise-Cancelling Headphone Method
This is a separate experiment that uses real ANC technology rather than software-generated phase inversion. Once you have matched your tinnitus sound using this tool, you can attempt the following:
- 1Match your tinnitus as closely as possible using the controls above. Note the frequency and waveform type shown.
- 2Open this page on a second device (a phone or tablet) and set the same frequency and waveform. Play the sound through the device's speaker at very low volume — just audible in a quiet room.
- 3Put on a pair of active noise-cancelling headphones (Sony WH-1000XM series, Bose QuietComfort, Apple AirPods Pro, or similar). Ensure ANC is switched on.
- 4The ANC microphones will detect the external tone and generate an opposing signal to cancel it. If the external tone closely matches your tinnitus frequency and character, this cancellation field may create a subjective sense of interference with the tinnitus perception.
- 5Try small adjustments to the frequency on the second device — typically within ±200 Hz of your matched frequency — and observe whether any position produces a change in your tinnitus perception.
Your tinnitus profile — tell your audiologist
This profile will not appear until you have started the sound. Once matched, note the frequency and waveform type — these are useful details to share with an audiologist when describing your tinnitus. Audiometric matching of tinnitus pitch is a standard part of tinnitus assessment.
For full information on tinnitus and how to find specialist help near you, please read the complete tinnitus guide on this site.
Mr Vik Veer, Consultant ENT Surgeon, Royal National ENT Hospital, UCLH, London. · Tinnitus guide · Home · Contact