Luxury TV brand Loewe has added a new “integrated sound personalisation” feature to its TVs that was first announced at IFA Berlin 2018. 

The software is called Mimi Defined, and was developed in partnership with a German company called Mimi Hearing Technologies which specialises in making advanced hearing aids. 

Mimi Defined works by adapting the audio from the TV to fit individual viewers' unique hearing abilities. The sound emanating from the TV is customized according to the viewer’s age group, based on a database that contains the digital hearing test results of over one million individuals. The idea is to make the TVs' sound as accurate as possible for each user. 

The data from the hearing tests is used to help produce a “personalised audio fit” for each viewer. Mimi Defined works quite differently to conventional equaliser technology, which is only able to amplify the general sound frequency when hearing is weaker. Instead, it goes further by optimising each individual frequency in the audio stream, and adapting these to the user’s hearing sensitivity. 

“The algorithms can recognise the functions of an ‘optimal’ human ear and uses the Mimi hearing profile to stress exactly those parts of the audio signal which are weaker,” Loewe officials said. 

The result is “improved sound for everyone, across generations,” the company said when it introduced the technology last year. 

Mimi’s technology has previously been used in headphones, but this is the first time its been used with TVs, Loewe said. 

Loewe says that sound personalisation is necessary because each person’s perception of sound is unique, and that most will see their hearing ability deteriorate as they get older.   

As we age, “[sound] seems more blurred, less brilliant, and the diversity and richness of detail are lost,” Loewe said in its pitch. 

When this happens most people simply grab the remote and ramp up the volume on their TV, but Loewe reckons that this is not a good solution as it also creates lots of noise pollution. It failed to mention that this could also upset other people in the house and possibly even disturb the neighbors. With Mimi Defined, that will no longer be a problem, the company insists.

One possible shortcoming of the technology that Loewe doesn’t mention is that the audio can only be personalised for one individual at a time, so we’re not quite sure what’s supposed to happen when a group of friends of different ages are all watching together. Still, the tech could well appeal to individuals who like nothing more than to totally absorb themselves in their favourite movies and TV shows.

Loewe said the Mimi Defined technology is now available in all of its new 2019 TVs, as well as “many existing models” via a software update.