How Good is Your Hearing - Take the Hearing Test! - Page 5

I'm 50. I could hear 16khz clearly. At 17khz I could hear something though it could have been the earbuds laughing at me ...at 17.4khz & 18khz I could hear myself start to cry... at 19khz I noticed a mosquito and killed it!

Seems like a cheat if you are using headphones and increasing the volume at the higher tones.

It's a medical fact that hearing deteriorates with age and that in most people around in your early twenties the ability to hear the upper frequency range really starts to tail off. I'm 35 and using my normal listening volume on my set up could only just make out 16K and I suspect that might have been pyschosomatic as I was straining and 15K is my actual limit.

Age: 34, Male.

Can hear all the way to the bottom (top?) at 22000 (with difficulty), 20000 with ease. I couldn't use the 22KHz tone as an effective ring tone, but the the 20KHz would not be an issue (and is quite annoying, IMHO).

Here is some data from three hearing tests from 2006-2010 (tested in "hearing booth" with headphones - occupational requirement).

The interesting part of these tests, is that hearing in the low/high frequencies seems to be the strongest, which is contra indicative of the "age vs. frequency" of the cell phone tests (at least at the high range).

I have no idea if this data is adjusted for age (any doctors out there)? But I don't recall explicitly giving my age before these datasheets were prepared. Next scheduled test is actually on Friday...



This begs the question --

How can people with lesser hearing differentiate the subtle differences in signal and power cables, rocks on top of CD players, etc. for example?

This is not meant as a snarky/sarcastic question, but seriously begs the question as to why I cannot hear these differences while a 65 year old person can (I wish I could!, as I'm apparently missing something...). I don't have any "musical" background, FWIW. I think (know) my hearing at my age is quite good - and appears to be *improving* through age.

Any thoughts?

We probably don't want to turn this thread into a debate on that . I will give the answer but follow up debate should probably be in its own thread. Answer is that they can and cannot. The high frequency roll off is only an issue if that is the effect for such product. Since the ear is most sensitive to mid frequencies and we don't lose much there, then most likely improvement for anything that audible makes the sound better likely has large contributions in that region.

If on the other hand you are testing a product where variations exist in high frequencies, then yes, you better have people who can hear that range. You can read confirmation of both of these factor from Harman folks where people like Floyd confirm that age does not diminish one's ability to critically evaluate audio products while at the same time, their expert listeners go through regular hearing tests to make sure they can hear issues in speaker design across the full audio range.


Why can one person play golf better than another? We accept training and natural ability as having a role in sports but when it comes to hearing audio distortion we tend to think we are all created equally .

We know that we can teach people to hear artifacts in say, audio compression. Therefore it reasons that the average person is oblivious to distortions that are audible and there all the time. By the same token, it is possible that some people have gained or already possess the ability to hear certain artifacts that others cannot.

I know I have lost a ton of my high frequency hearing yet I can hear compression artifacts (due to training) that the general public cannot. This is due to combined effect of both above.


Practical experience shows that having a musical experience is not a help in hearing distortion in audio products. Different training, for different application.

I could hear all of them and I'm half deaf.... Hmm

Interesting! -- As I cannot hear all of them with exceptional hearing!

Can you provide age and hearing test datum?

The whole thing is a placebo test. All the test tones are at 1 Khz but since it tells you the frequencies are going higher, people automatically think they should hear less of it!





Seriously, using a PC for such a test is not the greatest idea unless you know precisely how your PC plays audio. On Windows machines, find the sound control panel and see the default sampling rate. If it is 48 KHz, set it to 44 Khz and then take the test again. At 48 Khz, likely there will be some "aliasing" distortion that you might hear even though you can't hear the original test tone.

Was wondering why I could hear all of em lol. As my hearing isn't that good at all. lol. This is also nothing like the real hearing test I've always seemed to get my entire life.

What would be the testers motivation for introducing a placebo?

.. And.. what is "it"? (-- "*it* tell you the frequencies...")

I'm open-minded and receptive to your explanation, but nothing prior to the test told me what to expect, except for tones, for which I should respond to by means of a button press.

My test was conducted for routine medical evaluation purposes (by an audiologist), not as a means of validating audiophile dogma. I doubt the evaluator even owns a single hi-rez audio disc.

Fun!

I hear all headphone sounds really good...the one sound I can't seem to hear is WifeHz!!! That's what she tells me, or something like that, I dont know, I dont listen....

I can hear all the way to 20 kHz and I'm 20. I'm surprised though, I figured percussion would have destroyed my ears by now.

I used a SPL meter thinking the same thing... I can't test the tone frequencies
but my meter moved past 15 Khz where my ears stopped but the meter moved and tested all the way. My wife could hear them at 18 our Grand Son all of them and he said it hurt his ears so I turned my Klipsch Pro media 2.1 speakers down and tried it again. The meter moves but my 61 year old ears don't hear past 15. I was wondering if these PC speakers were accurate , the reason I used the Db meter.

I am glad at least someone bothered to test the validity of the report before a 100 more people tried it .

BTW, it is not sufficient to use a SPL meter here. If your sound card is aliasing, then it will still produce a tone but it won't be the original pure tone. You would need a oscilloscope or spectrum analyzer to make sure there is no distortion generated at lower frequencies.

That is what our grown son(worked at Microsoft) said, we have a expensive card(for us ) 24 bit Sound Blaster X-Fi 3-D THX and a tall box you plug into. Wife builds web sites and stores pictures for her Photo Bussiness, babies,weddings etc they built a expensive PC, 4 chip ECU mother board (full size Thermaltake Box) killer video card too hooked up to our 55" TV
in small den with my Klipsch Cornwalls and HT system. Wish I had a scope for my R2R and a MRL tone tape to set the Azimuth on my ReVox reel to reel.
Retired now and setting all my Dad's old equipment over here now. Still learning about the PC and it's hardware.

I'm 49, male, used to go to concerts thru late 20's, then life got busy.
Consider my hearing decent.

Did this at work using basic Koss headphones, thru a Dell E5410 laptop.
I could hear 17khz, maybe 17.4khz.

Will try at home, I'm pretty sure the test tones CD I downloaded from here has some high freq tests on it also.


These results correlate with me "performing" like I'm half my age....so says my wife

is it okay to use headphones with this test? I am 30 and I can hear 22khz @ 50% volume...

At the age of 62 I can only hear the 8 & 10Khz sounds and for that I lay the blame squarely at the collective feet of Leo Fender, Jim Marshall, Orville Gibson and Les Paul.

Yes some PC speakers are not the best for this test. I used my SPL meter
with my Klipsch Pro Media 2.1 system at 60% and noticed after 15Khz I could not hear the tones but the needle moved..... 61 suprised I can hear this good.... hey the PC speakers worked fine all the way.

w/ headphones, 12k real nice, 14k nada. 52 y/o with -40 dB spl at 8kHz on the left and -60 dB spl on the right.

37

Can BARELY make out the 14kHz at the very beginning...

15KHz is the max for my 57 year old ears. I'm happy with that, I did sheet metal work for over 30 years, much of it in noisy industrial environments. Hearing protection measures are widespread in the industry now, not so much in my early years.

Jay

I'm 66
I'm an MD
have horrendous tinnitus
can hear 15k, suprisingly
but my mid high range is F'd
Wife continually says "why can't you hear me?"
This was a great thread, thanks

I maxed out at 19kHz, and I'm 41 years old.

I guess my ears must be "golden" after all.

64 yrs.

just barely can make out 14k at about -24db from ref. with ear next to tweeter

Low level of tinnitus from spending way too much time in large computer rooms with lots of fan noise.

i can hear up to about 24khz (19 year old male), i used adobe audition to create the test tone, i can barily hear 25 khz but i definitly hear 23khz (speakers has ribbon tweeters)

Male, 41.

I can hear 16kHz perfectly, from 17 to 20kHz I can hear just a very small "noise", but at 21kHz I can hear that noise a little bit better than 17~20kHz.

At 22kHz I can still hear a very small noise, but at 21kHz is still a bit louder than the rest (17~20).

Always use wav/flac for those tests.

Used to swimming a lot so that might be the cause.

Funny stuff.

My headphones are cheap (nothing special):
http://store.razerzone.com/store/raz...ctID.169415800

I want to try with HD800 in near future.

I'm 35 years old and I can hear 16k clearly, and I bet if my office and computer were quieter I could hear 17 and 17.4 as well.

I managed to hear the frequency @ 17khz Male, 28yrs old. :/

It only gets worse from here on out!