What frequency can you hear? A test.

Of course you need to use a good sound source.

I used AKG 240 monitor headphones plugged into my computer. Nobody should do this test without headphones.

-Kevin S.

Actually, Jasmes...

I had at first made the assumption that my AKG studio monitors were the best set to try with this test. After your post, I decided to plug in my Koss Porta Pro's just to see. </endorsement> I've always loved the sound from these Koss and they were really just a mid-range-priced, folding head set. I've had them for years. They are the only headset I've ever had where I've repeatedly (accidentally) yanked the wires hard and it's never ruined them. </endorsement off>

Anyhow, using these headphones, I could JUST hear the 20 KHz test sound. I was wondering why my first "score" was so low because I hear a high-pitched noise in my Saab that several technicians have sworn they cannot hear and it drives me nuts. It's the single biggest reason why I will be returning the car at the end of its lease.

So, try multiple headphones or speakers when doing this test.

-Kevin

If you can't hear the 17khz tone at a proper volume, don't crank the volume up to see if you'll hear it, you will just ruin your speakers (specially notebook speakers)

Nice, Redhats. That's pretty high. I wish the test also went to the low end. I'd be curious what my range is there.

-Kevin S.

The low end .. about 500 Hz is where you get the volume. So when I stand in a room full of people I can hear every single person at the same volume. I miss the rumble of Explosions. so I sit at a desk with special headphones with Max bass boost just to let me hear even close to normal.

I would Kill to be able to hear bass again.

There is work being done to help, but bass boost is really hard for in ear hearing aids, so I need to travel with a box and headphones if I'm in a crowded place, Then everyone signals to me as they think I'm listening to an audio track or music or something.

Thats why I dont work with a lot of people and spend most of my time at keyboards now. I need the quiet times.

Even if everyone is heard at the same volume, hearing your name or a four-lettered-explicative are perceived as being louder (3x!). It's a documented phenomenon, there's even a wiki about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocktail_party_effect

Redhat is to do with what I do for a Living. Our farm is based on RHEL modified for Supercomputing

Q is what everyone calls me as I'm always making crazy gadgets and the boss Loved the original Q from the Bond Movies, Once he started calling me Q so did everyone else.

SO redhats Q is which area and who. As we have another Q here in a different department .. who most call Q2, Personally I call her QT3.14159265

(tom will get it prettey fast anyway)

Hey Q, I tried to do a search for a low frequency audio test but I couldn't really find anything like this high frequency link.

Can you make something and throw it up on a link somewhere or would that take way too much time? Only if it's quick and easy, of course (and if you have the equipment to make it ).

-Kevin

Unless you have unusual hearing, like Q, the point where your ears stop picking up bass is going to be around the range when your ear drums just physically cannot make sense of the incoming frequencies. this is usually ~20hz, and you detect those frequencies as vibrations in your body, not through your ears. A low end test would be pretty uneventful, as you can feel frequencies higher than you're likely to lose your hearing.

Its 3am, I'm rambling trying to make sense here.


Basically, a bass test would be novel but if you can hear the lowest string on a bass guitar (E @ ~40hz) then you're not likely to gain much from finding out if your hearing drops off in the 10hz-20hz range before the human ear drum's shortcomings (namely its small size) come into play.

High-frequency hearing loss is usually caused by life-long exposure to loud noises.

Low-frequency hearing loss is usually caused by something 'organic' in nature (ie tumors or congenital defects).

Either way, I'd trust my doc before an online quiz!

-karl the med student

I was exposed to the loud high frequency 'whistle' of air hoses in an aircraft manufacturing plant.

I only worked in them for (maybe) five years. However that was enough to give me constant 'ringing in the ears' at the same frequency as the sound of escaping air around the metal couplings of air hoses.

That is the same frequence of air rushing past teeth when people speak. Hence I cannot tell a 't' from a 'c' when people are talking to me.

I'm not a doctor nor a med student, just a sufferer of high frequency hearing loss.

ya, it definately can happen quickly, just *usually* it's an ongoing process.

sorry to hear that tho!

I doubt it will affect you much. but sure

I'll pull up a wav recorder and an audio generator and post these onto a web site somewhere

Its night now, so tommorrow

I found a file online from a company called Genelec that has a set of sounds in the following frequency range:

16, 18, 20, 22, 26, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 120 and 150Hz

http://www.genelec.com/support/mp3/g_*****.mp3

But you have to just hit play and then somewhere near the beginning, you will begin to hear the sounds. With my headphones in at work, I probably didn't hear the first 4. With my sets at home I probably didn't hear the first two. A shame that most headphones aren't made to operate well above and below the threshold of typical human hearing. The variation I'm experiencing from different sets has been an interesting learning experience.

-Kevin

I ran that listening first with the 'trademark' white earpohones that came with my iPod - - - didn't hear a thing until half-way through it.

I put on my Bose 2 headphones and heard the very first one right off.

Truly amazing.

The Apple standard issue headphones are crap. They don't fit my ears and the sound is unimpressive. I wish they'd just save me a few bucks and sell the iPod without them since they immediately hit the garbage as soon as they're out of the package.

Actually, one test I found online alternated between a low and a high frequency sound (well within the range of most people). But it was from a company who made one of those in-ear headphones and it was a test file you were supposed to download to your iPod to see if it was properly seated in your ear. If it was not, you likely wouldn't hear the low frequency sound very well, according to them.

-Kevin

i can always hear TV's being on (when the screen is black) from another room... the sound of flourescent lights makes me insane, too.

I didn't test the higher frequencies, maybe I should give them a shot!

V

I always hear that high pitched sound whenever there are cell phones around... My friends think I'm crazy but it's weird. In the middle of school I all of a sudden plug my ears, and then the teacher gets me in trouble

I could hear all of those with my headphones, my speakers couldn't even deliver the sound after 17khz

...not me, I'm just a med student, but this is what his site had to say:

"It is because of a phenomenon called "magnetostriction", the tendency of some substances to vibrate in an oscillating magnetic field. PAL has a 15.6 KHz linescanning frequency [US (NTSC) oscilates at 15.750 khz]and this can set up a vibration in TV set components at the upper limit of human hearing which some people can hear. Other appliances have "chopper" power supplies, electronic switches that "chop up" DC to regulate voltage via a pulse width modulation at so many KHz, and this may have something to do with what [you hear]."

I can't validate it, but it seems to make sense. AND that would explaing why some people (esp. kids) can hear tv's when there is no programming on.

-karl the med student

When I was a child, I always knew whenever a TV in my home was on, even if it was my parents' set upstairs while I was downstairs. My mom always thought it was that I heard the programming, but it wasn't! I knew it, I wasn't insane! I did hear the TVs go on and off!

Yea, I can hear all of them, but im only 14. I won't be able to in a few years. I knew that I could hear 18000 as I generated it in Audacity to annoy everyone in class, and the teacher can't hear it .

And about the TV, I can hear that to, but as I live in AUS I don't have NTSC tv, so I can't try to see if I can tell the difference

And it drives me NUTS!
TVs, Security Monitors, Computer screens, I can hear the blasted pitch.