Extracellular events of single units were studied in response to acoustical and electrical stimuli in the barbiturate anaesthetized cat. The electrical stimuli were biphasic current pulses, 100–200 μs/phase, delivered at 100–400 pulses per second (pps) via a bipolar electrode implanted into the scala tympani. The first group of units, group 1, generated action potentials 1.6–2.4 ms following an electrical pulse, while the latency for group 2 was 2.4–4.8 ms. In both groups, the spontaneous activity and the response to a pure tone was commonly suppressed between 2.5–3.75 ms following an electrical pulse. It is possible that groups 1 and 2 received mono‐ and di‐synaptically mediated excitatory inputs, respectively, and a disynaptically mediated inhibitory input. Both groups commonly generated action potentials at a second latency between 3.75–10 ms, which may have been due to long latency monosynaptically mediated or disynaptically mediated excitatory inputs. There was a difference in discharge rate between acoustic noise stimulation and electrical stimulation at high current levels for group 2, but not for group 1, suggesting temporal interaction between excitatory and inhibitory drives.