The cochlear ac potentials in response to a stimulating tone of rapidly increasing intensity undergo a rapid reduction in amplitude after reaching a certain maximum. The record seen on the cathode ray screen is indistinguishable from that reported for middle ear muscle action, yet the response described here occurs in the absence of muscles or of the entire middle ear. This effect is described as a “clamp,” but it is found to be the result of overloading in the inner ear. Within the limits of these experiments it is shown that the rate of rise of a tone makes no difference in the form of the cochlear ac response. This finding, if carried to extremes, would suggest that the inner ear behaves the same in the presence of impact noise as it does in the presence of steady‐state or slowly rising tones.