the present invention provides a method for detecting acoustic shock in an audio input signal ), comprising the steps of monitoring the input signal ) in the time - domain . thereby detecting the signal floor , detecting the peak level of the input signal , detecting the attack time of the input signal , detecting the duration of the input signal . based on those detections , determining a shock contrast level as difference between the peak level and the signal floor , determining a shock index by use of a shock index normalization constant and comparing the shock contrast level and the shock index with respective thresholds and indicating an acoustic shock if one or both thresholds are exceeded . thus , the present method provides a quick and reliable shock detector that operates in the time - domain . the shock detection takes place with zero time delay , or even predicts the shock before it fully goes through the signal processing .