Monaural beats are the result of mixing two separate steady tones externally, producing nearly the same sound like with the binaural beats. The concept behind monaural BWE is the same with that of binaural beats.
Two slightly different steady tones are introduced to each speaker, and the resulting sound is mixed before it reaches the ear. The result is similar to a binaural beat.
As the produced tone is formed outside the skull, monaurals, like isochronic tones, do not require headphones to work.
There is also a study on monaurals that showed that are five times more effective than binaural beats. As you see in the picture, the waveform of a monaural beat has a clearer imprint than a binaural which is more shallow.
Unfortunately, I haven’t tested many monaural products to compare them with binaural beats. Though, there is some brainwave entrainment software, like Neuro Programmer 3, that contain monaural sessions.
Unmasked monoaural beats can be heard more easily than unmasked isochronic tones. Their effect in stimulating the brain is powerful and noticeable.
If binaural beats are considered to be soft-core and isochronic tones are the hardcore then, monaural beats are in the middle.\
You can check this forum for more information about brainwave entrainment. It is the community site of the Transparent Corporation which develops brainwave entrainment products.
One of these is the Neuro Programmer, which is an excellent software that also contains monaural sessions. The discussions there, are not limited just to the company’s products. You can find reliable and valuable information for many brainwave entrainment products, general discussions on the topic and more.
Hi, my name is matthew smith, and I was wondering, how long should you listen to monaural beats?
It is not so much a question of how long to listen to a monaural beat but rather what brainwave frequency will dominate and for how long. Except for some parts of the sleep cycle, all 5 wave categories are present in the brain at any moment in the day but depending on what is going on in your surroundings (e.g.: relaxing on a beach or running from a bear) one brainwave category may be dominant over all the others. Entrainment software are tools to allow you to quickly switch between wave forms (another tool is meditation). So really your question reads as – how long should you be be in beta or alpha or ….
All the article is about, is telling you that to achieve a given brainwave category, monaural beats have certain advantages.
Hello, thank you for your interesting article.
I produce a ceramic multi chamber whistle that produces high frequency monaural beats. I find that it is highly stimulating to the brain and skull, with bliss and meditative state being the most common report. I am looking forward to doing some brain scan imaging to determine what specific areas of the brain get stimulated.
If you are interested in one of these, I sell them (called the Star Key) at songbirdocarina dot com.
Thank you, very informative, cut to the chase, layman language, easy to understand. Beautiful!
The study you cite is far more complicated than your quick evaluation. However, it is unfortunately flawed because unless I am mistaken they used the same delivery method for both. They didn’t use headphones. Binaural beats require headphones for maximum effect. Other studies on binaural beats at 40hz, such as this one https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28739482 show very positive results. As a side note, binaural beats are shown to be the most effective brainwave entrainment method at lower frequencies in the theta and delta ranges.
Please include me on your list of potential study subjects for Monaural beats.