EARS Bridge
Measure your headphones with Dirac Live.
Dirac Live takes one calibrated microphone. A miniDSP EARS has two — one per ear. EARS Bridge sits between them: it applies each ear's calibration and presents it to Dirac through a virtual audio device as the single microphone it expects. By default it runs in Auto per-ear mode, following Dirac's sweep so each earcup is measured in turn rather than combined.
See the difference
From uneven to corrected.
Headphones never measure flat. Per-ear calibration lets Dirac Live correct the response yours actually produce — here is a raw measurement and the EARS Bridge–corrected result.
How it works
One calibrated mic, both ears accounted for.
The capture and the virtual device run on independent clocks, so the path includes a lock-free, drift-correcting sample-rate converter. Each ear's correction is a minimum-phase FIR derived from its calibration file.
EARS / EARS Pro
Two-channel mic capture
EARS Bridge
Per-ear cal → 1 ch → SRC
Virtual cable
VB-CABLE / BlackHole
Dirac Live
One recording device
Features
Built for accurate measurement.
Auto per-ear
Dirac sweeps both channels in one routine; EARS Bridge follows the earcup it's sweeping and records only that ear's calibrated mic — both ears corrected in a single pass, no open-back crosstalk. A live indicator shows which side it's capturing.
Per-ear calibration
Loads each capsule's FRD calibration as an inverse-correction FIR, so the EARS's own response is removed before Dirac ever sees it.
One-click Dirac setup
Detects the standard VB-CABLE and sets Dirac to shared mode in a click, so its exclusive-mode “recording device error 600007” never blocks you.
Phase-stable audio
A lock-free asynchronous sample-rate converter holds a steady timebase across the sweep, keeping the two independent clocks in step — so Dirac accepts the measurement's phase, with no dropouts or slip.
Measurement health
Live per-ear meters with a green target band, plus clear warnings — a too-low level, input clipping, a disconnected jig, a silent input, a resampled rate — so a bad measurement never passes for a good one.
Gain staging, simplified
The exact loudness doesn't matter — Dirac normalizes the measurement. Turn your amp up until the L and R meters reach the green band; a too-quiet capture is flagged instead of passing as “clean.”
EARS and EARS Pro
Original EARS (48 kHz / 24-bit) and EARS Pro (44.1–192 kHz, 16/24/32-bit). FIR taps scale with the rate.
Cross-platform
A self-contained installer on Windows and a universal disk image on macOS — built from one codebase.
Open source
The full source, design system, and build are public — inspect it, build it, or contribute on GitHub.
Download
Get started in a few minutes.
You'll also need Dirac Live to measure, the Dirac Live Processor to apply the result, and a virtual audio device. In EARS Bridge pick Auto per-ear and set everything to 48 kHz, then run Dirac's normal measurement — it follows each earcup for you. The full from-scratch guide walks through every step.
Windows
- Download and run
EARS-Bridge-Windows-Setup.exe(self-contained, no admin needed). - Install VB-CABLE and reboot if asked.
- On first launch, SmartScreen may warn — choose More info → Run anyway (the app isn't code-signed yet).
macOS
- Open the
.dmgand drag EARS Bridge to Applications (universal — Apple Silicon and Intel). - Install BlackHole 2ch.
- Not notarized yet — the first launch is blocked. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, and click Open Anyway (or run
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/EARS Bridge.app"in Terminal).