Comparisons of auditory brainstem response elicited by compound click-sawtooths sound and synthetic consonant-vowel /da

•Synthetic consonant-vowel syllable /da/ is most commonly used to evoked cABR.•Compound click sawtooths (CSW) similar with /da/ but free of harmonic/formant energy.•CSW showed greater responses and better latency-intensity functions than CV-da.•Unlike /da/, energy components can be changed without biased changes of the other. The auditory brainstem response to complex sounds (cABR) could be evoked using speech sounds such as the 40 ms synthetic consonant-vowel syllable /da/ (CV-da) that was commonly used in basic and clinical research. cABR consists of responses to formant energy as well as the energy of fundamental frequency. The co-existence of the two energy makes cABR a mixed response. We introduced a new stimulus of click-sawtooths (CSW) with similar time-lock patterns but without formant or harmonic energy. Ten young healthy volunteers were recruited and the cABRs of CV-da and CSW of their 20 ears were acquired. The response latencies, amplitudes, and frequency-domain analytic results were compared pairwisely between stimuli. The response amplitudes were significantly greater for CSW and the latencies were significantly shorter for CSW. The latency-intensity functions were also greater for CSW. For CSW, adjustments of energy component can be made without causing biased changes to the other. CSW may be used in future basic research and clinical applications.