Evaluation Summary:
This paper proposes that specializations in the outer hair cells' biophysical properties along the cochlea may allow them to amplify the reduced receptor potentials in a manner sufficient to explain all present experimental results. Moreover, the filtering provided by the hair cells may be beneficial for hearing soft high-frequency sounds because it decreases noise and harmonic distortions. Importantly, the amplitude of the relevant motions, even with the low-pass-filtered attenuation, are as large as those measured in the high frequency regions of the cochlea. The authors provide insights and suggestions but the paper lacks strong supportive experimental data to definitively resolve the claimed "apparent" membrane time constant conundrum.
(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

