Starting with von Békésy’s traveling wave and the cochlea’s +80 mV biological battery, we move millisecond-by-millisecond through the auditory brainstem response (ABR Waves I–V), auditory nerve, cochlear nucleus, superior olivary complex, inferior colliculus, thalamic reticular nucleus, and finally primary auditory cortex (A1). The Endocochlear Potential (EP) is the highest DC voltage in the human body. As signals travel, excitation-inhibition attempts to balance that. When intact, brains can filter noise and locate meaningful sound. In Autism, reduced GABAergic sculpting (parvalbumin, somatostatin, and VIP interneuron dysfunction) plus lower myelination and a delayed Wave V — already detectable on the newborn hearing screen — turn ordinary environments into an unfiltered flood. The result is listening dissonance: a moment-to-moment perceptual st ...