Can You Hear This?

[Salluz]

20 years old and I can hear to the max, which can explain why can at times struggle with insomnia unless I use ear plugs. I'll wear them every night! Hopefully nothing will happen that'd require my need to hear! On second thought, that's kind of scary.

[Kizyr]

14khz is where I can't hear anymore.

...geez, thanks for making me feel old, DA. I'm gonna cry now. KF

[Arek the Absolute]

23 and able to hear them all.

Is there a reason why 17 was the highest sounding? 1-16/18-22 were way lower pitched. 17 killed my ears.

[SoulinEther]

i'm 19 and i could hear 20 really faintly. used to be i could tell if a tv was one from really far away i'd feel a sort of pressure, but i couldn't this time.

I'm pretty sure I can still do that (with CRT tvs)

[HalcyonSpirit]

I'm almost 24, and I can't hear above 15. I can sense up to 20 if the background noise isn't too much, but I can't actually hear anything that high.

And yeah, tinnitus... 15 sounds like what I get.

[Swann]

I'm 19 and I could hear to 20 clearly and then nothing higher.

Is there a reason why 17 was the highest sounding? 1-16/18-22 were way lower pitched. 17 killed my ears.

Yeah, same here.

[zircon]

The problem with home tests like these is that if you are playing back very high frequencies on a not-so-good sound system (even if YOU think it's good), you can potentially end up with some signal saturation or distortion. This can add some extra harmonics (possibly below the fundamental, which you're trying to hear), which in turn can lead you to believe you're able to hear that high when you really can't.

Also, DO NOT TURN UP YOUR VOLUME when doing this. Once your hearing is gone, you can't get it back, and blasting anything through headphones is generally a terrible idea.

[Bahamut]

I can barely hear 16k, and I can't hear 17k at all. I'm about to turn 26.

[SoulinEther]

The problem with home tests like these is that if you are playing back very high frequencies on a not-so-good sound system (even if YOU think it's good), you can potentially end up with some signal saturation or distortion. This can add some extra harmonics (possibly below the fundamental, which you're trying to hear), which in turn can lead you to believe you're able to hear that high when you really can't.

which may be why i believed for a second that I could hear 20, 21 and 22, until I realized they should be higher in frequency, not lower, than the rest. can't blame a deaf man for trying.

[SLyGeN]

I have a good sound system and could percieve all of them, but if I were taking a hearing test some would be too subtle for me to notice, since I wouldn't be the one touching the buttons. 20khz is about when it feels more like a pressure than like a tone.

I'm 20 years old, a metalhead, and some of you have seen my desk full of speakers. Suffice to say I love loud music.

You can also generate tones with Audacity if you're curious.

I might have an explanation as to why 17khz actually sounds higher than the rest: they're fucking mp3s. There are probably lower-sounding artifacts in these clips. Just go into Audacity and generate a 20khz tone.

This also reminds me of that Teen Buzz thing.

[OverCoat]

23 years old, 17 khz

wooha

[SoulinEther]

explanation that i commented on above

wait a sec, in what I believe to be an ASL thread in disguise, you have yet to report your results!

[Nick Hyral]

25 years old and could hear up to 20khz. Couldn't hear higher but was sensitive to something as it made my head throb while I played them.

[Kiyobi]

._.

21, can't hear beyond 10...

Should I be worried?

[Doulifée]

17, maybe 18 hard to say there is a moron playing with a hammer not far.

[Gario]

17/18, for me, at 24.

Sadness.

[Mirby]

The average around here seems to be 17/18 kHz... not bad, I suppose...

[Rozovian]

24yo, I can hear 14k but not 15k.

Also tested this in Logic with a pure sine wave. 14200 ok, 15000 nothing.

On speakers anyway.

[Monobrow]

I can barely hear 16k, I'm 28 years old.

[Thylacine]

I'm joining the 18 party, even though I could BARELY hear 19. It was more like I could tell the headphones were trying to play something rather than hearing an actual sound.

I'm 24, listen to music a lot (obviously - I think most of us do here), and almost always listen to it with headphones.

[ZealPath]

I can just barely make out 17, it's faint but it's there, I'm 27, decent I guess!

[Vimk]

I can hear the full range up to 22kHz although it gets a little quiet, I'm 21

Man you guys have terrible ears.

[Kizyr]

Tried it again with headphones. I can hear barely the 14k, and I think 15k is where it cuts out. I sense some kind of vibration at the higher tones, but I can't quite tell if I'm actually hearing something or it's psychosomatic (I recommend trying to download them and playing it randomly, interspersed with bits of pure silence, to figure out if that's throwing you off). My tinnitus is probably about 13k when it hits.

I can hear the full range up to 22kHz although it gets a little quiet, I'm 21

Man you guys have terrible ears.

It's 'cause we're old! Thanks for rubbing it in.

Now get back to myspacing your tweets, or whatever it is you kids do these days. KF

[Liontamer]

17kHz for me, but only at the beginning of it. It immediately blends into ambient noise after it starts up.

[Fishy]

I have a waxy thing atm which is a bit impairing for HF, but I can still hear the 17kHz fairly well. I suspect 18kHz would be my limit normally.

Just btw, a 15 minute outside break every 45 minutes in a club can be the different between temporary loudness recruitment and permanent damage. Dance clubs are LEGALLY obliged to offer ear protection on request if their levels are above the threshold of damage to the average ear. If you're in doubt, ask for it. You will never get that sensitivity back once it's gone.

EDIT: Here's a handy graph so you can see how quickly those ridiculously huge club speakers will break your ears. As soon as you hit that line, you're getting permanent damage. It may only be slight, but it does add up because it never comes back.