How high does your hearing go?

insider9

Well-known member
Interested to know if anyone else checked. I can't hear past 17kHz. Surprisingly my 16 year old son also said that once it goes above 17kHz he can't hear anything. My wife is the same (frequency wise not age :biggrin: )
 

MajorFubar

New member
Mar 3, 2010
690
6
0
Visit site
14kHz. There's sod all of interest beyond about 16kHz anyway. People assume the centre frequencies of sounds like triangles, tambourines and cymbals are a lot higher than they really are. By 16kHz it's generally all over with other than harmonics. Hearing too high frequencies is more of a curse than anything. Back in my 20s when I could hear 21kHz+, the 15kHz squeal from CRT TVs used to annoy me. The IR cat-scarer down the drive emits a 21kHz whistle when it's triggered, which drives my two teenage sons nuts.
 

Blacksabbath25

Well-known member
Sep 20, 2015
309
88
10,970
Visit site
I am not to sure but I can not hear my ribbon tweeters on my Dali

because when you get past a certain age my ears stop picking them up but my little one can hear them working so what frequency they run at I do not know
 

MajorFubar

New member
Mar 3, 2010
690
6
0
Visit site
insider9 said:
That's like some species of bats :bravo:

Are your sure you don't have other superpowers?

lol sadly not, and it was a very long time ago when I was still young, thin, and had hair. These days the only thing I hear at about 15-16kHz is a tinitus whistle in my left ear, normally inaudible but noticeable in silence. But whereas in the old days the whistle from the TV went when I turned the telly off, this is permanent.
 

tonky

New member
Jan 2, 2008
36
0
0
Visit site
MajorFubar said:
insider9 said:
That's like some species of bats :bravo:

Are your sure you don't have other superpowers?

lol sadly not, and it was a very long time ago when I was still young, thin, and had hair. These days the only thing I hear at about 15-16kHz is a tinitus whistle in my left ear, normally inaudible but noticeable in silence. But whereas in the old days the whistle from the TV went when I turned the telly off, this is permanent.

I get my tinitus in glorious stereo

tonky
 

Gazzip

Well-known member
Jan 15, 2011
88
2
18,540
Visit site
My left ear can hear higher frequencies than my right ear. I spent a month sleeping in my listening room when my second child was born last year. I only discovered my frequency imbalance when I put some music on top drop off to one night. All seemed good until I rolled on to my right hand side and some of the HF disappeared! I had my ears micro-suctioned a few days later but that didn't solve it. I will be calibrating my setup this weekend (MiniDSP Dirac arrived yesterday *acute* ), so I will be running frequency sweeps and will probably find out how bad it really is!
 

insider9

Well-known member
I haven't compared both ears. I suspect it's unreasonable to expect both ears would be the same, not many things in nature are. But would definitely be worth knowing whether the differences are big.
 

Gazzip

Well-known member
Jan 15, 2011
88
2
18,540
Visit site
insider9 said:
nick8858 said:
Most interesting. Renders 99% of Hi Res tracks completely useless

Not sure what you mean...

If so it would also apply to all other music, unless I'm mistaken

I think nick8858 it refering to the fact that standard redbook CD exceeds the frequency range of human hearing. Ergo why buy anything higher res than an ordinary CD. If yes then this has been dealt with on various other threads and there are apparently different/better masters used for some hi res/SACD releases which have a better dynamic range. Apparently.
 

insider9

Well-known member
Gazzip said:
insider9 said:
nick8858 said:
Most interesting. Renders 99% of Hi Res tracks completely useless

Not sure what you mean...

If so it would also apply to all other music, unless I'm mistaken

I think nick8858 it refering to the fact that standard redbook CD exceeds the frequency range of human hearing. Ergo why buy anything higher res than an ordinary CD. If yes then this has been dealt with on various other threads and there are apparently different/better masters used for some hi res/SACD releases which have a better dynamic range. Apparently.
Dynamic range yes, but don't think frequency range is any different. It's the same music irrespective of format.
 

Gazzip

Well-known member
Jan 15, 2011
88
2
18,540
Visit site
insider9 said:
Gazzip said:
insider9 said:
nick8858 said:
Most interesting. Renders 99% of Hi Res tracks completely useless

Not sure what you mean...

If so it would also apply to all other music, unless I'm mistaken

I think nick8858 it refering to the fact that standard redbook CD exceeds the frequency range of human hearing. Ergo why buy anything higher res than an ordinary CD. If yes then this has been dealt with on various other threads and there are apparently different/better masters used for some hi res/SACD releases which have a better dynamic range. Apparently.
Dynamic range yes, but don't think frequency range is any different. It's the same music irrespective of format.

The frequency response of an SACD can theoretically extend to 100kHz I think, although practicality limits the format to 50kHz... Redbook only goes to 20kHz. I suspect that this is what nick 8858 is refering to in the context of "how high does your hearing go"...
 

insider9

Well-known member
Gazzip said:
insider9 said:
Gazzip said:
insider9 said:
nick8858 said:
Most interesting. Renders 99% of Hi Res tracks completely useless

Not sure what you mean...

If so it would also apply to all other music, unless I'm mistaken

I think nick8858 it refering to the fact that standard redbook CD exceeds the frequency range of human hearing. Ergo why buy anything higher res than an ordinary CD. If yes then this has been dealt with on various other threads and there are apparently different/better masters used for some hi res/SACD releases which have a better dynamic range. Apparently.
Dynamic range yes, but don't think frequency range is any different. It's the same music irrespective of format.

The frequency response of an SACD can theoretically extend to 100kHz I think, although practicality limits the format to 50kHz... Redbook only goes to 20kHz. I suspect that this is what nick 8858 is refering to in the context of "how high does your hearing go"...
Fair enough. I've not actually realised that SACD go that high. Thanks for clarification, Gazzip.
 

ID.

New member
Feb 22, 2010
207
1
0
Visit site
MrReaper182 said:
Don't know. I can not tell the difference between A 24 bit flac file in 96k Hz and a 24 bit flac file in 192k Hz.

you do know that's the sampling rate rather than how high a frequency is reproduced

nick8858 said:
Most interesting. Renders 99% of Hi Res tracks completely useless

while I don't think there's much to high resolution and that it's pretty much bunk, this is a common misconception. Yes, it allows frequencies beyond human hearing to be reproduced, but the theoretical argument for high resolution are the benefits of extra detail from a higher sampling rate. There's also the argument that even the frequencies beyond human hearing have an effect on those that we can here and instruments do produce such frequencies.

Anyway, last time I tested myself I could hear to about 17 kHz which I guess is ok in my 40s

I find I can still hear the whine from certain electronics like CRT monitors, but definitely nothing like in my teens. No idea what frequencies I could hear then, but from certain experiments in music classes at school I think it was pretty acute, so I'd like to think I could actually hear up to 20,000 at the time.
 

kikiso

Well-known member
Jun 3, 2011
7
0
18,520
Visit site
Ran the test at http://onlinetonegenerator.com/frequency-sweep-generator.html and can just about get to 15khz. I aso used to get annoyed by the squealing CRT TVs which I started to notice in the first colour sets. I'm guessing I was around 12 years old when we visited a relative who had managed to be one of the first people to get one. As far as I can remember not many other people noticed, but it sounded quite loud to me. Over time I noticed it less and less, either my hearing was going or I was just getting used to it, but maybe age is the factor.....
 

MajorFubar

New member
Mar 3, 2010
690
6
0
Visit site
Before I joined here I used to think that the benefit of hi res audio was at the upper end of the spectrum. A 44.1kHz sampling rate results in a 10kHz signal being sampled only four times per cycle and a 5kHz signal only eight times per cycle. Which by my inferior wisdom wasn't very much, so I figured hi-res audio would reproduce high pitched sounds better. However those with far better knowledge than me insist 44.1 is quite enough, and fair play I know where the limitations of my technical understanding are. I don't argue with people who know more than me.
 

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts