Not a medical device and not medical advice. Some tinnitus needs a clinician first — use the safety checks below.
Some tinnitus is a symptom that needs a clinician first. Tick anything that applies to you.
On a phone: use Share → Add to Home Screen to install Notchwright like an app. Headphones required; leaving the app can stop playback. Music files stay on this device and are re-added each session.
The notch only exists if it survives to your eardrum.
Set your system volume to about half, then use this slider. After today, leave the system volume alone so every session is comparable.
The reference tone should be clearly audible but soft. Notched listening should feel comfortable, never loud.
Tap each tone and mark it if you hear it. This tells you what your headphones and ears can actually carry, so the app can warn you if your tinnitus sits above that.
If your tinnitus is in one ear, use the opposite ear so the tinnitus doesn't mask the test sound.
Each run starts at a random pitch. Move the pitch until the tone sounds like your tinnitus, then match its loudness. Do at least 5 runs, ideally spread over 2–3 days. Single matches are unreliable.
Keyboard: ← → fine, ↑ ↓ semitone while the slider is focused.
The most common pitch-match error is landing an octave off. You'll hear three tones: your match, half and double, in random order. Pick the one closest to your tinnitus.
The best trial (Stein 2016, 100 people, double-blind) found no difference on its main outcomes, only a small drop in rated loudness, below what counts as clinically meaningful. A 2024 meta-analysis of 3 trials found notched music no better than ordinary music.
Any benefit seems limited to steady, tonal tinnitus below about 8 kHz with mild hearing loss. Listening itself, not the notch, may be doing most of the work.
That's why the blinded design is the default. It puts your own real-notch weeks against weeks with the notch an octave away, and the log shows whether the difference is bigger than your day-to-day noise.
The real notch per ear: a Linkwitz-Riley band-stop plus three staggered notch filters. It is flat outside the band and at least 30 dB deep across most of it. The flat line is an ear with no notch.
Music you enjoy and listen to attentively is what the trials used. Noise is a fallback. Use high-quality files (FLAC, WAV or high-bitrate) from your own device. Bluetooth and streaming compression can partly fill the notch back in.
Files stay in this browser tab and aren't uploaded. Add them again each session.
Ceiling-limited. Comfortable, never loud, and never louder to mask the tinnitus.
Same time every day, before listening. Rate the tinnitus right now.
Take the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI, 0–100; a change of 7 or more points matters) or the TFI (13 or more points) once a month and record the total here.
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