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Non‐technical summary  The hair cell, or sensory receptor of the inner ear, achieves high sensitivity by amplifying its mechanical inputs. The mechanism of amplification depends on the concerted opening and closing of mechanically sensitive ion channels in the hair bundle, a cluster of actin‐containing rods that protrude from the cell's top surface. When a hair cell is stimulated simultaneously at two frequencies, channel gating also produces distortion products or responses at other frequencies. Using a sensitive interferometer to measure the motions of stereocilia, we have found that hydrodynamic forces act within the hair bundle to suppress these spurious signals. The hair bundle has evidently evolved an effective means of amplifying input signals while reducing the effect of distortions.