Reality check on upper limit of human hearing.

[Disco Volante]

At 49, I'm 6dB down at 17kHz. I've always been sensitive to sound. These days I always keep earplugs in my bags and pockets. So much unnecessary sound (=noise) out there... Granddad went deaf and dad is going there, so I am cautious. AND make sure to listen to some good music and enjoy life while I have it;-)

 

[k brown]

At 49, I'm 6dB down at 17kHz. I've always been sensitive to sound. These days I always keep earplugs in my bags and pockets. So much unnecessary sound (=noise) out there... Granddad went deaf and dad is going there, so I am cautious. AND make sure to listen to some good music and enjoy life while I have it;-)

One of the greatest inventions in recent times are the 'musician's earplugs', that cut way down on overall SPL without muffling the frequency balance too much.

 

[iomegaman]

My tinnitus in my right ear is best described as a constant reminder that a mosquito is riding a mini bike running a chain saw at about 3 db all the time...so I test my hearing every 3 months or so...the incessant noise peters out at about 12,800 Hz...and beyond 13k I hear nada...

 

[JohnRoberts]

There was a long and boring thread on Gearslutz years(?) ago about the upper limits of human audition...

Maybe search over there...

JR

 

[johnsonic]

I used an iOS hearing test, but it seems as most of them top out at 8k. Anyone know of one that goes up to 20k?

45YO, slight hearing loss on the low end. 8k looks mostly fine but am curious about above that, would be nice to quantify amount of loss for way upper end other than just "I can hear it by using a tone generator"

 

[Mr. Moscode]

Musician ear plugs are very good. Although I sometimes forget to use or they get in the way for playing softly. I have a tinnitius outbreak from using a riding lawnmower yesterday w/o the plugs, dummy that I was. Some days are less than tinn-itus-y than others. But I seem to be able to tune into the music on the downbeat.

There is also fatigue that sets in after a while which is more a function of mental fatigue which doesn't help. Jazz is demanding.

 

[Grim Reaper]

My wife says I have a hearing problem but I know it is a listening problem.

 

[Electrobumps]

hearing tests only go up tot 7khz as this is what is needed to hear conversation.

In my mid 20's I could hear 19khz. I'm now 41 and hearing 16k on a sine. Also the response of each ear is different. If you ever do a hearing test you will see this.

My mentor who was mixing in his late 60's
Couldn't hear the 10k test tone he would use to balance the mix EQ. Sometimes he would forget to turn it off and I would have to ask him to turn it off.

We had a discussion about this, as he would have much higher than 10khz dialled in across the board and on the mix buss.

He stated that the records he made back in the 60's, 70's, 80's & 90's didn't sound dull and that when he mixed now he could tell when more HF was needed. Even though on a sine wave frequencies could not be heard. He thought the brain was able to distinguish and do something.

his records still sounded great and they were not lacking any HF to my ears.

 

[industrialarts]

When I was in my late teens to early 20s I could easily hear 20k +. I know this because I did a lot of tape machine and turntable setup and had no problem actually hearing - not just sensing - the upper limits of test tones. At 65 my hearing is whacked, right ear way different than left, last time I took a hearing test I supposedly had virtually no low frequency hearing. Still and all, everything sounds great and can still easily detect frequency and distortion problems on the gear I service. Have some tinnitus in my right ear, which used to be really bad, somewhere between 5-7k and loud. Now it's up near 10-12k and sometimes not even noticeable.

My right ear regularly got the worst of it. Somehow every band I was in my amp was to my right, tickets to concerts got me next to the right hand stack and whenever you are in a loud night club and somebody wants to talk, they yell in your right ear. I could turn my head to make them talk into the left and they would come around to yell in my right.

Oh, BTW - you should never drive with the windows open above 20 mph. Super strong pressure at low frequencies. Also, you should never blast the car stereo with the windows completely closed. Again, a lot of pressure on your tiny ear drums

Of course, I have never followed my own advice, so that's why my ears ring

 

[Mr. Moscode]

My wife says I have a hearing problem but I know it is a listening problem.

Stick with her story, the hearing problem for cover .

 

[Timjag]

I’ve been a live and studio engineer for 32 years, I can hear 18k just fine, (for all the good that would do) my problem (and it really isn’t a problem) is much lower, hi-hats and compression drivers are fierce at 2.5-4k and that’s when I get a little tinnitus which can lead to some masking, but I know where it is and given my age it’s nothing really. I guess I’m just lucky with resilient ears.

I wear plugs now when I’m not mixing, but I certainly didn’t when I was young. The only time I really had a problem was when the tour manager with a band decided to shout ridiculous frequency cut suggestions in my ear at point blank range, like proper shouting.

It hurt like nothing I’ve ever experienced, and the pain and whistling lasted for a week. Luckily I recovered. But when he came back for another show I banned him from being near the sound console! Lol

 

[JohnRoberts]

I wore ear plugs while driving my motor cycle to protect against wind noise.

One time in the army they decided to re-qualify us by firing off a clip of M-16 on full rock and roll (full automatic). The army neglected to provide ear plugs, so I bummed a couple cigarettes from fellow soldiers and wedged the filters into my ears.

JR

 

[Ricardus]

I’ve been a live and studio engineer for 32 years, I can hear 18k just fine,

How old are you?

 

[hodad]

I used an iOS hearing test, but it seems as most of them top out at 8k. Anyone know of one that goes up to 20k?

45YO, slight hearing loss on the low end. 8k looks mostly fine but am curious about above that, would be nice to quantify amount of loss for way upper end other than just "I can hear it by using a tone generator"

I use a Yamaha DX synth with a single sine wave up. I follow pitch using an EQ plugin with a graphic display. It tells me nothing about dips(though it does show methe holes), but it gives me a good enough idea of what’s going on. And it goes much higher than a standard hearing test.

 

[C12VR]

I use this because it's easy to adjust, goes to 20k, and I'm usually within arm's reach of a computer anyway
https://www.szynalski.com/tone-generator/

 

[ruffrecords]

I turned 72 a few month's back and I knew my hearing was deteriorating because I found it increasingly difficult to hear what people were saying in the face of background noise and TV actors seemed to do nothing but mumble. I knew when listening to music in my workshop that the HF response of my left ear was a lot better than the right just by turning my head. In the end I bit the bullet and got my hearing tested. I was gobsmacked to learn my ears are nearly 20dB down at 8KHz (they don't measure above that). Long story short I got some hearing aids and it is truly amazing to hear (almost) normally again. The hearing aids I have can be set to one of four configurations. The two most important are regular speech which flattens the response up to 8KHz and the music one that goes higher (they don't say how high). Hi hats, tambourines and maracas are a real treat nowadays.

Cheers

Ian

 

[MicMaven]

Be careful, folks. One can easily get tinnitus from blunt head trauma (concussion.) I know, because I slipped and fell on ice last Winter and banged my head hard, wrecking my previously perfect hearing. Dang. Be careful. James

 

[ChrisMadog]

When I was in my eartly 20s I could hear the 22KHz whistle in one particular air conditioning duct that used to give the switchboard ladies headaches.
I've worked in very noisy environments including being a live sound mixer, a DJ, and an avid listener to music - sometimes loud music.
I have always had this 'thing' about excessively loud though - when it loses clarity, turn it down until clarity is restored. If you can't get clarity, the music is crap so turn it off or get better music.
I have a huge range of genres that I listen to with the main exceptions being most Rap and some Hip-Hop. Otherwise, anything from classical through to hard metal and =everything= in between.

I am now pushing 70 real hard and I can still just make out 12KHz.
Due to a virus infection in 2002, I have tinnitus in both ears ringing at 8.92KHz.
The freuency doesn't vary but the loudness does. On a good day, 12KHz. On a bad day everything is difficult to hear.

Despite tinnitus, I still enjoy music and I am a Presenter of two shows at the local Community Radio Station - Rose City FM in Warwick, Queensland.
I still love music and enjoy sharing it with the listeners. Evidently, they enjoy it too.

Enjoy what you can, while you can.

 

[zamproject]

In my mid 20' walking by night in the country side (a small village I leave in) I clearly hear the bats, each night in summer.
Obviously it was not the 50k FM echo-location sound, but I just check, they can emit at around 18K for the courtship ritual
I don't hear them anymore when I go back to this place...for sure we lost hearing being older...or maybe it's just that I'm not so attractive anymore for them

Cheers
Zam

 

[Timjag]

How old are you?

I’m 51. I just did an “I’ve 20 mins to kill test on a myself” test. 17.8k sine wave I can hear, unpleasant though it is and appears to me so much quiet than 10k but yup it’s there, 18.8k nothing absolutely zip, my monitors may not get up that high but it’s probably me.

But as I say it’s 2 to 5 k that takes the hammering

As far as the idea that kids can hear higher frequencies than us duffers goes. It’s horseshit. I read the “study” at the time that was part of a PR campaign to sell anti-kid sonic deterrents, I’m old enough to remember when a similar “study” said the same thing about mice. That was horseshit too. Or rather mouseshit which continued to appear in our shed even with one of those damned contraptions. Others have had more luck I don’t know, they usually combine them with other deterrents the idea that kids won’t hang around a playground and sniff glue because of some magical sound that adults can’t hear might be one of the most preposterous things I’ve read in recent years.

Which brings me to an important point, everyone is different everyone hears sound differently and everyone enjoys music for different reasons. If life were a simple as “science say it’s this” and a bar graph to prove it life would be pretty boring. I don’t know why people want science to prove something is good, seems stupid to me. Like all those bullshit “studies” of the 80s and 90s that “proved” why Mozart was so great mathematically - like seriously? Wgaf? Like are you so insecure about your taste in music that you need an egghead to confirm it’s good? Anyhoo I digress

Here’s another note on the way things sound (to me) when electric cars first started to gain traction (excuse the pun) I nearly walked in front of one a number of times, and for for quite a while too. I said to my partner on more than one occasion “damn these Prius(es?) are so damned quiet I could easily walk out or cycle in front of it without realising”
Recently I noticed I wasn’t doing this anymore, I live in central london and every other car is electric these days, what I realised was this, that electric cars are not silent, they make their own noise, but it was a noise my brain chose to filter out because it wasn’t associated with danger to me, but now it is, so I react to it. So maybe when you think you can’t hear high frequencies, maybe when you think you don’t hear 16k sine wave, maybe you do? Maybe you just don’t know that this is what a 16k sine wave sounds like, maybe your brain is yet to log it because it’s not important to your day to day survival.

Anyway who wants to listen to fricken sine waves??!!

Tim