An apparatus, software, procedures and technology that, beginning with a simple manipulative auditory paradigm, moves up the auditory neural pathways, modifying the basic stimulus from a unilateral routine audiology tool to a dichotic central auditory processing diagnostic tool that defines hearing loss along the entire auditory chain from the middle ear to the cortex. From the resultant data comes information related to the reduction of tinnitus employing parathreshold central procedures rather than the traditional suprathreshold masking or phase-shifting techniques. The new application modifies and applies known technology in new ways for both the top-down and bottom-up differential diagnosis of auditory disorders and the tinnitus reduction.