Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler hearing loss?

first off, I am 24 years old.

I was checking out my DVE audio tones and i did a frequency sweep from 15 HZ to 22kHz

It seemed like somewhere netween 15kHz and 17kHz I could not hear the tone anymore. I tried a couple of times, even got closer to the speaker and turned the volume up at that part a bit..... I just heard the 'hiss' from my tweeter that is there from the amp. I could not turn things up too loud because I found no way to only play the tones that I was having problems hearing. The ones I could hear would get pretty loud.

I checked out this web site:

http://www.freemosquitoringtones.org/

and I was able to hear the 19.8 kHZ tone loud and clear though.


I could just BARELY hear the 21.2 kHZ. And by barely I mean barely... if I didn't know I was playing something I probably wouldn't notice it.

Also I checked out this website (note: turn down speakers if you click on this link)
http://www.freehearingtest.com/test.shtml

and turned my speakers down as low as they could go so the test tone was barely audible. I was able to hear all test tones fine, but it only went to 8khz.

And here is one more:
http://deafness.about.com/gi/dynamic/off...jw/hearing.html

I was able to hear all the way up to 16 khz no problem.
I have no idea how close these sounds are to what the frequency says but I thought I would mention here and see if you guys thought I had hearing loss!

Also, the other night my girlfriend was sitting next to me and I was doing a 15 hz to 300 hz frequency sweep at a pretty low volume. She said she could hear the sound at about 21 hz, and I really had to strain to hear it. I could hear it easy as pie after about 25 hz. If I turned up the volume on the receiver I could hear the tone the same time as she could.

My girlfriend was at work tonight so I can't see if she can hear the high frequency tones on the DVE, since she apparently has really good hearing.


Anyway, so does my hearing suck? how high are the m80's suppose to be able to play?

terz,
Women hear better/are more sensitive than men at detecting high frequencies. I'm not surprised she can hear tones slightly beyond.
The typical upper hearing range for humans is around 20kHz, (give or take a few thousand).
I spoke with the provincial nurse during my hearing test that takes place in the little sound proof booth (part of getting SCUBA medical certification over the years) and she said that discerning frequencies correctly beyond 16kHz becomes unreliable and more variable (i.e., on average people she's tested start to fail the hearing test around 16kHz).

I can hear it up to 19KHz for sure with the 80s but I do have to turn it up.

The only way you can know whether or not your hearing sucks is by going for a test. So do yourself a favour and go for one so that you're not forever wondering in high anxiety. The 80s and a test CD are not the way to test your hearing.

I agree with Mojo, but will add one other small thought.

Remember: the way that the frequency scale works there is very little real-world difference between hearing up to 15K and hearing up to 19K.

The 4Khz between those points is NOT the same as if you were losing 4Khz between 6Khz and 10Khz for example....

I'm jealous. You have great hearing. I'm 54 and had my hearing checked a few months ago. Its OK but...gulp... ...my FR between 7khz and 10khz has dipped, as has my ability to hear higher frequencies over 14khz. Every where else its linear. Doc said its normal for males over 50.

Maybe its time to change my icon and get one with earmuffs?

Yah, but in 30 years things will be different!

What did you say?

Same here, I'll be 50 this year and my Doc told me the same.

I haven't had mine checked, but my wife did last year. While she didn't have significant hearing loss, she does have an unusual sensitivity to loud noise. Unfortunately, this does not pair well with my audio hobby...

Ear plugs

Yeah, I recently went up to the safety office at my work and got some earplugs for work/ect. We do dam safety inspections periodically and some of those inspections are spent inside hydropower plants. The spinning turbines can get LOUD, so earplugs are a must.

I use over the head (ear muff style) hearing protetion at work. We do road work and run jackhammers a lot, so it's a must. I even use them at home when running any type of power equipment.

Bummer. Maybe that's why I've taken to listening more closely to midrange lately. When I asked what's next he said expect the dip to go beyond 10hz. How long and when he couldn't say. Not much we can do about it.

You can all rest comfortable with the fact that hearing is yet another illusion.

I think my wife has is especially sensitive to loud volumes as well. She of course claims that I just can't hear, but no one else ever complains that it is too loud. Maybe we'll both do the hearing test someday to get the final word on it.

Interesting thread. I need to get tested again and see if any technology based solutions have addressed one of my items. Coupled with some upper bass/midrange deficiencies, I also have a compression issue.

Imagine 2 sounds sources, one say at 70 db, and another at 90 db. I effectively hear them close to the same level.

God I hate it. In a mtg, someone is talking next to me, then some at the end of the table talks just above a whisper to their neighbor. It's all the same level and I can't make heads or tails out of either

Then couple that with some sensitivity in the higher end (yes I can tell you if florescent lights are on behind the close door with some certainty),,,,

so when someone whispers across the room it sounds likethey are talking loud right next to you?

Are you sure you aren't Superman?

Yeah, I definitely thought superhero with powers out of his control.

Not really with whispers across the room, but say a private muted conversation at the far end of table is the same perceived loudness as the person addressing the room. Its not that I can hear low volumes well, its just that louder volumes are somewhat normalized to the lower volumes.

Does that help?

That's not pleasant.

Well that isn't like superman at all.

More like tingling Spidey senses, but annoying, because its always on.

This is very true, however the 80's, a test CD and a very high powered amplifier is a great way to destroy your hearing.

Hi,

Women retain their high-frequency hearing much longer than men, often decades longer. My mother's sensitivity to high frequencies was still excellent when she was in her 80s. There are various theories about this. One is that traditionally women stayed at home and weren't exposed to industrial noise and the noise of the city. But that's all changed with a lot of women working. It would be interesting to see a sample of hearing losses of contemporary women who work in industry and in the city.

I'd also agree with kcarlile and others here that women tend to be more sensitive to excessively loud music levels. That may be because they simply don't have the same degree of hearing loss as men.

Generally speaking, men lose the ability to hear 20 kHz by the time they're out of their teens, and most men over 40 or so are unlikely to hear much above 14 kHz.

There's no need to get all worked up about this, however. As someone in this thread pointed out, although 10 kHz to 20 kHz seems like a wide band of frequencies, in musical terms, there's virtually nothing up there, especially above 12 khz. There are a few harmonics of instruments such as violins, piccolo, triangle and cymbals, but the higher order harmonics are way down in level below the fundamental tone and the first few harmonics. It's the fundamental and lower order harmonics that tell your ear and brain the timbre of an instrument. The low-level harmonics up at 15 kHz and above just don't matter, nor do they play any role in the judgments you'll make between what is a good speaker and a bad speaker. What you want is really linear loudspeaker performance in the upper bass, midrange and upper midrange.

Regards,

Hearing's a funny thing... I always protected myself at work - concerts and stuff - wearing hearing protection... even when I would attend concerts as a "normal".

I'm starting to wonder if I'm underprotected when I shoot though... since the time period of each shot is so short, you don't get a real feeling for how loud they are (I keep seeing numbers around 140-170 dB)... and I only wear 21dB muffs. I may have to move to wearing foam plugs inside them.

Bren R.

I heard (I think on the show The Big Bang Theory, of all places) that womens hearing is more sensitive in the mid to high frequencies because of evolution. Women's primary role over the past million years or so has been to take care of children. So they are especially sensitive at the frequencies of a baby's cry.

My source is very odd I know, but it does make sence.

Paul

Whereas adult males have to tune out the sound of females if they want to maintain some form of happiness?