# I can only hear 20hz-20khz.



## rxonmymind (Sep 7, 2010)

Let's see what you can hear but be honest. SOME of you have systems that are amazing and have headphones that rival cost of entire audio systems. Cost is not a factor. Anything to make you hear better that comes from a speaker is cool. Keep it simple please.
Age and frequency. 
On my system in order to "hear" 18 hz it had to be dialed up REALLY high and then I only hear FAINT flutters. Nothing below 18 hz. Gone. So what do you hear? 
I'm 45
18hz-14Khz


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## Lycancatt (Apr 11, 2010)

15 hz to 15 ish kHz..but that's with an eighteen inch sub in my house..so may be cheating

I'm 29 almost 30


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## myhikingboots (Oct 28, 2010)

Nothing above 12k. 46 years old and my sight is also going off a cliff. If I live to be 50 I'll have to sell my pickup with stereo, because I won't be able to see to drive or hear the sound system. 

But speaking of high frequency loss, there really isn't a whole lot of music that you are missing. Most notes in that range are just irritating to listen to. Bass is great, but the joy of music really lives in the midrange, imho.


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## fcarpio (Apr 29, 2008)

rxonmymind said:


> Let's see what you can hear but be honest. SOME of you have systems that are amazing and have headphones that rival cost of entire audio systems. Cost is not a factor. Anything to make you hear better that comes from a speaker is cool. Keep it simple please.
> Age and frequency.
> On my system in order to "hear" 18 hz it had to be dialed up REALLY high and then I only hear FAINT flutters. Nothing below 18 hz. Gone. So what do you hear?
> I'm 45
> 18hz-14Khz


Same age and my range is about the same, I think I can hear (barely) a tad lower though but the upper range is the same.


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## fcarpio (Apr 29, 2008)

myhikingboots said:


> Nothing above 12k. 46 years old and my sight is also going off a cliff. If I live to be 50 I'll have to sell my pickup with stereo, because I won't be able to see to drive or hear the sound system.
> 
> But speaking of high frequency loss, there really isn't a whole lot of music that you are missing. Most notes in that range are just irritating to listen to. Bass is great, but the joy of music really lives in the midrange, imho.


Right, I am at 14KHz max and I still love what I can hear. On another note, I don't even bother EQing past that mark as I can't hear much. I get something close to flat using my RTA, but that is only to satisfy my OCD.


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## dieselgeek (Jan 28, 2015)

34 years old and on my laptop I can hear 19KHz I have a pretty constant ringing in my ears anyway, but it's very very faint. I shoot a lot of guns, and try to shoot as much as I can suppressed, and w/ extra ear pro.


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## cajunner (Apr 13, 2007)

with admittedly so few people actually having trouble hearing anything beyond 14Khz, it would appear that the need for placing an on-axis widebander, is less important, as well as tweeters that actually keep their response above 12Khz from rolling off.

I listen to Aura Whispers and really don't miss the stuff way high up, which is probably a function of the diameter and low inductance out of the neo-radial motor, since there are tweeters that have the same size voice coils...

but their tested performance shows a rough and downward response above 15KHz, I am not sure but Andy Wehmeyer says his GB15 is capable of 20Khz, so...

is it just the Whispers, or is it something else? I figured larger diameter tweeters to have a jump on low frequency response, but at what point the diameter starts to skew the response in the upper region?

MB Quart's WideSphere is supposed to work well, and they are a little larger yet?

Anyone have the skinny on why some 1" tweeters have trouble above 10KHz and some go flat to 32KHz?


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## fcarpio (Apr 29, 2008)

dieselgeek said:


> 34 years old and on my laptop I can hear 19KHz I have a pretty constant ringing in my ears anyway, but it's very very faint. I shoot a lot of guns, and try to shoot as much as I can suppressed, and w/ extra ear pro.


I have the ringing too (tinnitus) and it isn't quiet, but fortunately I have learned to live with it. I can actually tune it out, now it would be awesome if I could tune out crying babies too...


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## myhikingboots (Oct 28, 2010)

fcarpio said:


> I have the ringing too (tinnitus) and it isn't quiet, but fortunately I have learned to live with it. I can actually tune it out, now it would be awesome if I could tune out crying babies too...


Tinnitus is a *****. After living with it for years most of the time I don't notice it, but it is always there.


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## rxonmymind (Sep 7, 2010)

fcarpio said:


> I have the ringing too (tinnitus) and it isn't quiet, but fortunately I have learned to live with it. I can actually tune it out, now it would be awesome *if I could tune out crying babies too...[*/QUOTE]
> 
> ....and miss out on all the fun? Sometimes I can still hear them...just like tinnitus! It does go away. Now we have a 6 month grand baby and it's back. Lol....


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## rxonmymind (Sep 7, 2010)

myhikingboots said:


> Nothing above 12k. 46 years old and my sight is also going off a cliff. If I live to be 50 I'll have to sell my pickup with stereo, because I won't be able to see to drive or hear the sound system.
> 
> But speaking of high frequency loss, there really isn't a whole lot of music that you are missing. Most notes in that range are just irritating to listen to. Bass is great, but the joy of music really lives in the midrange, imho.


Never say its over. There is a solution for this and other challeges just like yours. When autonomous cars come out you'll be set.  Just as the internet did for those with physical set back the self driving car will. Hang in there it's right around the corner.


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## gckless (Oct 11, 2012)

I'm 26, can hear up to about 18-18.5kHz. Can go down to around 20Hz.


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## T3mpest (Dec 25, 2005)

I lose hearing somewhere past 14khz. I can hear 14k, 16khz I can hear if it's really loud and it gives me a headache. 20k, nothing, just a headache if I crank it, but no real noise I can hear. Low end hearing seems to be much better. Playing with my new Sony Headphones that have very good bass, i can hear 15hz for sure without much difficulty with those. I'm 28, been into stereos since I was 16 and have had some fairly loud ones so the fact that I have some hearing damage doesn't suprise me. I don't think I have much tinnitus which is good, I've heard some slight ringing literally as long as I can remember, but it's VERY faint and I don't notice it really.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Hearing tones below 20Hz isn't likely. What you hear is excessive harmonic distortion, both headphones and speakers tend to distort heavily in the lowest octave at moderate volumes. I've heard Velodyne servo subs and I'll tell you - distortion free sound below 25Hz are felt not heard. 

I hear 16,9kHz on my left ear and 16,7kHz on my right. I too has mild tinnitus, I hear it when it gets quiet.


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## gijoe (Mar 25, 2008)

I have a feeling that most people claiming to hear sub 20hz are actually hearing higher frequency noise because they have to crank the volume so high. I'm not willing to go so far as to call ********, however, I suspect that most of you can't actually hear 15hz. There may be sensation from the movement of the air (in headphones for example) but feeling and hearing aren't the same. Yes, you can perceive a 15hz tone if it's loud enough, but I'm not convinced that you can hear it.


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## rxonmymind (Sep 7, 2010)

gijoe said:


> I have a feeling that most people claiming to hear sub 20hz are actually hearing higher frequency noise because they have to crank the volume so high. _I'm not willing to go so far as to call ********_, however, I suspect that most of you can't actually hear 15hz. There may be sensation from the movement of the air (in headphones for example) but feeling and hearing aren't the same. Yes, you can perceive a 15hz tone if it's loud enough, but I'm not convinced that you can hear it.



6-7 billion people in this world and I'm thinking there are those that can. Just a guess though. My eye sight in the AF for example was 20/15. No biggie. There were guys in the military that had eagle vision. 
From an eye doctor..
"Way back in the 70's, I was an Optometry Specialist in the Air Force. One day I was checking the visual acuity of a pilot ( part of his annual exam), once i had him in the chair, I turned on the screen at the other end of the room and asked him to read the smallest line he could. Expecting him to read the 20/15 line, the smallest line on this chart, he rattled off a bunch of letters that made no sense. A-M-E-R-I, ect. I asked him if he could see the T-V-C-E-L (the 20/20 line) and he said he could. I asked him what line he just read, he said the one two lines down fron the 20/20 line. As there was only one line below that, I walked to the other end of the room and checked, he was reading the really tiny copyright line, AMERICAN OPTICAL!"

My point of the story above is there are normal people with "gifts"of one of the five senses and find nothing special about them. You have Sommelier that can name the year, region, what month and what side from the hill the grapes were grown on and obviously where. Gifted people with normal senses that I think took their gifts and trained it even further.


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## Infinity (Jun 28, 2005)

At one time I was 17hz (yes 17) to 18khz. My boss said I had aerial ears. Unfortunately, now I'm positive it isn't that good. I haven't been tested in years, but I would guess it is FAR narrower than that now


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## jdsoldger (Feb 14, 2012)

At one point I could detect 21.5khz on high end headphones. That was more an odd sense in the ears then a tone though. Last I checked I am good out to 19khz or so still. I try to take very good care of my ears though. For bass, I know I can feel 20hz in my car, can't really hear it though.


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## gijoe (Mar 25, 2008)

rxonmymind said:


> 6-7 billion people in this world and I'm thinking there are those that can. Just a guess though. My eye sight in the AF for example was 20/15. No biggie. There were guys in the military that had eagle vision.
> From an eye doctor..
> "Way back in the 70's, I was an Optometry Specialist in the Air Force. One day I was checking the visual acuity of a pilot ( part of his annual exam), once i had him in the chair, I turned on the screen at the other end of the room and asked him to read the smallest line he could. Expecting him to read the 20/15 line, the smallest line on this chart, he rattled off a bunch of letters that made no sense. A-M-E-R-I, ect. I asked him if he could see the T-V-C-E-L (the 20/20 line) and he said he could. I asked him what line he just read, he said the one two lines down fron the 20/20 line. As there was only one line below that, I walked to the other end of the room and checked, he was reading the really tiny copyright line, AMERICAN OPTICAL!"
> 
> My point of the story above is there are normal people with "gifts"of one of the five senses and find nothing special about them. You have Sommelier that can name the year, region, what month and what side from the hill the grapes were grown on and obviously where. Gifted people with normal senses that I think took their gifts and trained it even further.


I'm not saying that there aren't people who's senses are better than average, but I am saying that most people making those claims are full of it, some of those people are legit, but most aren't. 

The sommelier example is an example of hard work and training, not necessarily an above average palette. Perhaps some of those people also have above average palettes, but that alone doesn't get you far. When talking about whether people can actually hear 15hz, I stand by my statement that only a small portion of those people making the claim can actually perform the task.


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## brett (Apr 27, 2005)

i may be hearing other cues such as distortion, but i feel like i can hear below 20hz sometimes.

though i know that i can't hear much above 16k hz for sure.

im 34 and a musician (drummer/guitar) and i listen to music louder than most

interestingly enough i just did a sweep test through headphones and realized that from 2k to 4k it sorta panned from left to right and then back to left closer to 6k. then back to right about 7500, and then from about 13k up my right was stronger.

i wonder if this has to do with hearing loss due to damage from direct music (ie, cymbals when i used to drum without protection) or in the car where reflections are more prominent on the left side.

glad i did this little test actually; should help in understanding my curve when i tune


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## garysummers (Oct 25, 2010)

"There is very little "ART" above 10K."

A quote frequently used in the sound mixing world.


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## rxonmymind (Sep 7, 2010)

brett said:


> i may be hearing other cues such as distortion, but i feel like i can hear below 20hz sometimes.
> 
> though i know that i can't hear much above 16k hz for sure.
> 
> ...


Lol. You bring forth a memory with the testing you did. When I enlisted in the Air Force in 88 I was sent to the Meps in Oakland for processing. Part of that physical was a hearing test. I laughed as me and twenty other guys were ushered into a room with scaffolding and plastic hanging everywhere and were told to wait. Well, while waiting they had circular saws goings, jack hammers, and other assorted equipment in use. Then after about ten minutes of waiting while the ears were assaulted we were asked to come in a room off to the side in the same area as the renovation was taking place and do a hearing test. I was chuckling inside. 
The tester said to identify which side the sound was coming from. I'm pretty sure we were at a high hz but I couldn't tell you which side I was hearing it from to save my life. See, I had ringing BEFORE I got in there. But they "passed" me and everyone else that day. Imagine taking a test after listening to jack hammers and saws.


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## Victor_inox (Apr 27, 2012)

When you starting to lose upper octaves hearing it`s not abrupt, kinda like crossover slopes. can be compensated with EQ, to the point.


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## myhikingboots (Oct 28, 2010)

rxonmymind said:


> Lol. You bring forth a memory with the testing you did. When I enlisted in the Air Force in 88 I was sent to the Meps in Oakland for processing. Part of that physical was a hearing test. I laughed as me and twenty other guys were ushered into a room with scaffolding and plastic hanging everywhere and were told to wait. Well, while waiting they had circular saws goings, jack hammers, and other assorted equipment in use. Then after about ten minutes of waiting while the ears were assaulted we were asked to come in a room off to the side in the same area as the renovation was taking place and do a hearing test. I was chuckling inside.
> The tester said to identify which side the sound was coming from. I'm pretty sure we were at a high hz but I couldn't tell you which side I was hearing it from to save my life. See, I had ringing BEFORE I got in there. But they "passed" me and everyone else that day. Imagine taking a test after listening to jack hammers and saws.


When my Dad was being drafted back in the mid '60s, the hearing test consisted of a sergeant yelling very loudly, "CAN YOU HEAR?!!!":laugh:


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## diy.phil (May 23, 2011)

^like a cell phone company


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## CDT FAN (Jul 25, 2012)

I'm 50 now. In my $120 headphones, I can hear low 20's to upper 14K. In high school, I could hear up to 19k.


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## tjswarbrick (Nov 27, 2013)

44.

At normal listening levels to ~ 14k on my left ear and 12k in my right. If I turn it up to what would be way loud at 1kHz, I can make out 16,000 in my left ear.


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## rxonmymind (Sep 7, 2010)

myhikingboots said:


> When my Dad was being drafted back in the mid '60s, the hearing test consisted of a sergeant yelling very loudly, "CAN YOU HEAR?!!!":laugh:


Bwhaha! That'll work.


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## Hillbilly SQ (Jan 26, 2007)

32. Low 20's on the bottom end and 17.5k up top. Also depends on how much wax is in my ears. When I clean them out with a little peroxide and warm water from an ear flusher EVERYTHING changes! My eyes are starting to fade for sure. Used to be able to see in near pitch black dark. Now I refuse to tint my windows because my night vision is going to hell. I need some of those yellow blue blocker clip-on's for my glasses.


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## jpswanberg (Jan 14, 2009)

I have a hard time hearing above 12k (50 yo with 40+ years of tinnitis), but I can tell when it is missing. My Gallo's die at 18k and my Maggies go way above and I hear the "lack" when I listen to the Gallos.


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## tjswarbrick (Nov 27, 2013)

Isn't that interesting? I heard some somewhat-off-axis fullrangers, and I couldn't tell what was missing, specifically, but they didn't seem very "alive" to me.
The system scored well in competition. So all I can figure is it was the MIA very top end, though I technically can't hear it.


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## Hillbilly SQ (Jan 26, 2007)

tjswarbrick said:


> Isn't that interesting? I heard some somewhat-off-axis fullrangers, and I couldn't tell what was missing, specifically, but they didn't seem very "alive" to me.
> The system scored well in competition. So all I can figure is it was the MIA very top end, though I technically can't hear it.


The material may have been there up top but it likely didn't have the sparkle a real tweeter does. I'm currently in a constant swing between sticking with just the widebanders that do really well up top and respectable sparkle to my ears or further complicate the system by adding tweeters.


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## Ultimateherts (Nov 13, 2006)

fcarpio said:


> I have the ringing too (tinnitus) and it isn't quiet, but fortunately I have learned to live with it. I can actually tune it out, now it would be awesome if I could tune out crying babies too...


I have had this as long as I can remember. When I was younger (around 5yrs old) I never told anybody because I thought everyone experienced it. A lot of sleepless nights: school performance issues etc, but I learned to just live with it.


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## toylocost (Jul 4, 2011)

I can hear/feel as low as my system will play...

I can hear up to about 15.5kHz, I am 24. Had a loud system (bass) for a while and grew up in a shop with loud tools. I do have slight tinnitus, sometimes worse than others.

My gf can hear up to about 13.5kHz and she is 22.


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## rxonmymind (Sep 7, 2010)

A nice read IMHO. The words seems to flow nicely. I especially like the thoughtful responses in the comment section. Food for thought and can explain some if the debate in another thread. 
(http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum...y-dogma/141216-higher-end-amp-sq-myth-96.html )


Here you go...
The World Beyond 20kHz


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

rxonmymind said:


> A nice read IMHO. The words seems to flow nicely. I especially like the thoughtful responses in the comment section. Food for thought and can explain some if the debate in another thread.
> (http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum...y-dogma/141216-higher-end-amp-sq-myth-96.html )
> 
> 
> ...


I have some issues with that last article. Examples below:



> What got me started in my quest to understand the capabilities of human hearing beyond 20kHz was an incident in the late eighties. I had just acquired a MLSSA system and was comparing the sound and response of a group of high quality dome tweeters. The best of these had virtually identical frequency response to 20kHz, yet they sounded very different.
> 
> When I looked closely at their response beyond 20kHz they were visibly quite different. The metal-dome tweeters had an irregular picket fence of peaks and valleys in their amplitude response above 20kHz. The silk-dome tweeters exhibited a smooth fall off above 20kHz. The metal dome sounded harsh compared to the silk dome. How could this be? I cannot hear tones even to 20kHz, and yet the difference was audible and really quite drastic. Rather than denying what I clearly heard, I started looking for other explanations.


What about non-linear distortion? Polar response? The magnitude response is only one part in what makes a speaker sound differently.



> TO FULLY MEET the requirements of human auditory perception I believe that a sound system must cover the frequency range of about 15Hz to at least 40kHz (some say 80kHz or more) with over 120dB dynamic range to properly handle transient peaks and with a transient time accuracy of a few microseconds at high frequencies and 1°-2° phase accuracy down to 30Hz


I call BS on that. First off 120dB DR? Seriously? Have this guy looked how a recording looks? You'd be glad if a decent recording has 15dB of actual DR, so does the electronics require a noise floor of -120dBFS? It really doesn't. I don't even think you can reach such a low threshold in an anechoic room. 1-2deg phase offset around 30Hz? I don't even get what he's talking about here, if he's talking about absolute phase, he obviously doesn't know what he's talking about. If he's talking about relative phase shift between channels (which I assume he doesn't), it's still a faaar stretch. 

Finally, the fancy description on how the auditory system works and how fantastic our hearing abilities are - I still don't believe it. Humans, even the best among us, do not hear anything past 20-22kHz, this is facts. He's even ignoring how incredibly little information there is in that region with most music, even if there were music packed with energy up there - I still think he's way off here. Logically, if you hear differences between two piece of equipment ("with the only difference being a FR extension to 20kHz vs 80kHz")*, there is OBVIOUSLY something going on in the AUDIBLE RANGE. 

So why did I put the * there? Because two piece of electronics or speakers for that manner will no longer share the same distortion profile if you extend the frequency response cutoff. Theoretically, high resolution audio is worse than ordinary CD-quality. Why? Because of non-linear distortion what may be induced way above the audible range. IM-distortion caused at 20-80kHz can have several distortion products that ends up in the audible range 20-20kHz which in turn degrade the sound quality per definition. Again, this is a far-stretch, but at least theoretically viable.



> The electronics in very high quality sound systems must also be exceptional. Distortion and transient intermodulation should be held to a few parts per million in each amplification stage, especially in systems with many amplifiers in each chain.


TIM is far less audible than steady state distortion. This has been widely accepted and fairly researched nowadays. How low distortion is this guy propagating for? a few PPM per amplifying stage? Ehm what...?



> My current design objective on amplifiers is to have all harmonic distortion including 19kHz and 20kHz twin-tone intermodulation products below 1 part per million and to have A-weighted noise at least 130dB below maximum sine wave output. I assume that a signal can go through many such amplifiers in a system with no detectable degradation in signal quality.


So he want to push THD+N and IMD+N below 0.0001% (-120dBFS)

Well that's an interesting design objective... I've never seen any amps perform that good, perhaps there are but I still fail to see the point. Even assuming it's the most offensive type of linearities known to man I'm highly doubtful about hearing things -120dBFS down. Add masking effect to that...



> Many audio signal sources have extremely high transient peaks, often as high as 20dB above the level read on a volume indicator. It is important to have some adequate measurement tool in an audio amplification system to measure peaks and to determine that they are being handled appropriately. Many of the available peak reading meters do not read true instantaneous peak levels, but respond to something closer to a 300µs to 1ms averaged peak approximation. All system components including power amplifiers and speakers should be designed to reproduce the original peaks accurately. Recording systems truncate peaks which are beyond their capability. Analogue tape recorders often have a smooth compression of peaks which is often regarded as less damaging to the sound


Ok. He got some point here. You can also reduce the transient distortion to an absolute minimum by having much "more power than required" (like 10 times). Harsh transitions/clipping results in tall order non-linearities, which is more noticeable than low-order. 



> Distortion during compression will be almost entirely third harmonic distortion which is not easily detected by the ear and which is usually acceptable when it can be heard.
> 
> A look at the specifications of some of the highly rated super-high end, ‘no feedback’, vacuum tube, power amplifiers reveals how much distortion is acceptable, or even preferable, to some excessively well-heeled audiophiles.


But come on now. Now he imply that distortion is preferable and not very audible at the same time. 



> The results have been very promising. As we approach perfect impulse and step-function response something magical happens. The sound quality becomes lifelike.


Again, implying that the frequency response extension should be as high as possible for a lifelike performance. I've heard systems that obsess over IR/step functions and I can't say I found them to be more "lifelike" than other high-end systems that had other design mantras. I don't believe it can be put in these terms at all. There are more to it. Remember the people who tried to reproduce square waves through speakers to find some kind of audio nirvana but it kinda died off.


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## Catalyx (Oct 13, 2011)

Using my pricey studio headphones to play test tones from uncompressed/aliased files, I can detect there's sound from 24 up to 20k Hz though it gets very faint around 18k. I'm 35 so that seems suspicious and I wonder if the freely available test files are totally isolated to the specified frequencies or if there are some barely audible remnants of lower harmonic orders present in them from the tone generator software.


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## subterFUSE (Sep 21, 2009)

I need to get tested. Did a brief internet test with headphones and I think I could only hear to about 14k.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## gstokes (Apr 20, 2014)

rxonmymind said:


> Let's see what you can hear but be honest. SOME of you have systems that are amazing and have headphones that rival cost of entire audio systems. Cost is not a factor. Anything to make you hear better that comes from a speaker is cool. Keep it simple please.
> Age and frequency.
> On my system in order to "hear" 18 hz it had to be dialed up REALLY high and then I only hear FAINT flutters. Nothing below 18 hz. Gone. So what do you hear?
> I'm 45
> 18hz-14Khz


Selective hearing, kinda hear what i want but the louder it is the more sounds i feel


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## tjframe (Jun 17, 2015)

I'm 47 and can hear from 20 to 13.5k

When I listen to a solid tone that rolls from 20-20k hz, I hear it fade in and out several times as it gets above 8k. Clearly those are holes in my hearing, but I don't notice them under normal circumstances.


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## ParkDaddy (Sep 30, 2015)

I'm 23 and can hear 15hz-19khz on my AKG Q701 headphones.


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## SUX 2BU (Oct 27, 2008)

No idea what I range I can hear and may have to try out an internet test on my rather crappy over-the-ear headphones just to see. But I do believe I have tinnitus. I don't work in loud environments but I spent most of my driving youth with my stereo turned up and my drivers window down while spending countless hours cruising.

I don't notice my tinnitus until I'm in basically a soundless room which often happens to be in the basement bathroom of my house in the middle of the night LOL It sounds to me like being in an electrical room with transformers humming. Is that what it sounds like to anyone else? And in an extremely quiet space I find it rather loud but a little background noise and I don't notice it.


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## subterFUSE (Sep 21, 2009)

I have a high pitched ringing in my ears most of the time. Only notice it when it's very quiet, of course.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Amorel (Oct 22, 2014)

I'm 51. Some days I can hear up to 16k, other days, nothing past 14k. 
Funny thing is; If I boost or cut 20k I can hear the difference in a big way, yet if I play a 20khz tone, silence.


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## Phil Indeblanc (May 27, 2015)

I have a AC unit in the wall running all the 10+ hours a day I work in here for a few years now. It sometimes starts a high pitch ringing in my ear, which I hear now. I think I'm gonna get me some ear covers/protectors!


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## Kazuhiro (Apr 28, 2015)

21. Can hear 20hz - 19khz perfectly fine, however 20khz is just a weird sensation to my ears. Good age to be spending on audio I guess haha


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Amorel said:


> I'm 51. Some days I can hear up to 16k, other days, nothing past 14k.
> Funny thing is; If I boost or cut 20k I can hear the difference in a big way, yet if I play a 20khz tone, silence.


Because you don't use brickwall filters. If you're using low Q filters then the EQ band at 20k will affect frequencies around and below that as well.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S6 using Tapatalk


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## cajunner (Apr 13, 2007)

and probably 99% of consumer grade product, is low Q filters on graphic equalizers.

and I've seen where most mass produced tweeters actually roll off, so that getting a bit of sparkle into the signal up high is almost a required use of equalization of some sort, or at least a shelf filter in the treble. Some decks have their shelf start at 10Khz, and some 20Khz, and others in-between.

Meanwhile the purist in you wants to believe it's your hearing that is somehow suspect, that the high quality and high cost equipment you bought are perfectly capable of presenting treble-sufficient signal to your ears, with everything stuck on flat, or zero detents.

I would feel safe in betting at least 25% of the people here talking about having their hearing tested by listening to internet provided samples on their home gear, are actually listening to bad gear and samples, and not indicative of their own hearing being poor.

Like, some people think that because their headphone manufacturer stamps "8 hz to 38 Khz" on the blister packaging inserts, the cans are somehow not to be questioned in regards to how high up they will play and how small the tolerances... as if the whole industry of headphone makers didn't need a graph or a +/- variable, just "8 hz to 38 Khz" and that's all one needed to know...

so if you put on those cans, you can assume that your paltry hearing crapping out at 16 Khz is because your ears can't hear it, and not at all because the headphone's response is dropped out 16 db from the baseline...


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## 1fishman (Dec 22, 2012)

I had "perfect" 20 to 20k hearing until I was 29. Then gradually declined, my last at home test show hearing loss around 15k. 

I don't know how accurate at home head phone test are. At school in the military and at the airline I worked at, our annual hearing test were in ultra quite text booths with calibrated head phones... Last time I was in one of those I thought they forget about me. Button in hand and a long time of nothing in my ears


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## sqnut (Dec 24, 2009)

Hanatsu said:


> Because you don't use brickwall filters. If you're using low Q filters then the EQ band at 20k will affect frequencies around and below that as well.
> 
> Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S6 using Tapatalk


I used to wonder about the same thing since I can't really hear the PN tracks past 15 but a change at 20 with the music playing is very direct and audible, and this is with my bit 10, so the Q has to be narrow.....but on something like the p80 your point is totally valid and I never thought that one out. 

So if we tell you we miss your logical and scientific take on things, will you come back on a more regular basis?


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## rxonmymind (Sep 7, 2010)

1fishman said:


> I had "perfect" 20 to 20k hearing until I was 29. Then gradually declined, my last at home test show hearing loss around 15k.
> 
> I don't know how accurate at home head phone test are. At school in the military and at the airline I worked at, our annual hearing test were in ultra quite text booths with calibrated head phones... Last time I was in one of those I thought they forget about me. Button in hand and a long time of nothing in my ears


I can relate to that. While processing through the AF(MEPS) in Oakland waiting for a hearing test there I sat with 20 others in a waiting area where they were doing construction. Lol. Hammer, drills, more hammers for a good thirty minutes. Then I go into a room with a silent booth. You think I heard anything? Lol. Every once in a while I'd here a ping but not sure which side it was coming from. But by and large nothing.
Somehow we all passed.


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## Amorel (Oct 22, 2014)

I used sennheiser hd600 and tones I made myself using Audacity to to test my hearing range.


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## JBThompson (Oct 3, 2013)

Playing the drums for two decades has taken its toll on my hearing, and I'm sure the occasional non-protected muzzle blast didn't help things. I'm pretty well topped out at 14K or so but I can detect frequencies above that; it's more of a funky pressure sensation. My wife on the other hand, has some crazy Spiderman hearing. She hates those dog whistle apps you can download, I think it's hilarious to play the different tones just to mess with her.


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## High Resolution Audio (Sep 12, 2014)

I'm 47 and using a couple of test tone videos from 2 HZ to 20,000 HZ I was able to hear from about 8 HZ - 15,800. Test was done using Audio-technica ATH - ANC7b headphones. 

I used this video for the high end:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5l4Rt4Ol7M

and this one for the low end:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSkH45nGuM8


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