Sep 05
Ever notice that when a TV is turned on you can hear a shrill sort of buzzing sound? No? Well, then you’re probably too old. According to this site the range at which we can hear shrinks as we age. They put up two sound clips, one of them you shouldn’t be able to hear if you’re older. They also posted clips of sounds at different Hz. I can hear up to 19,000 Hz and can barely make out 20,000. What about you guys?
Mines around 18,000 Hz and I’m a month away from 22 years old. It would be really interesting to then retake the test a year from now (continuously) to see how much you’ve degraded.
Gah, and even if I can’t hear them, I still can feel a headache.
I’m 21 years old and the highest one I can hear is 17000.
I’ve had some surgery to both ears when I was a kid, because of numerous ear-infections.
Kind of scary. I hope it won’t get much worse as I get older.
Im 14 and got up to 20000
im 14 and got up to 18000 though i did two sets of tubes when i was two.
What?
20 yrs old and I’m between 15 and 16,000
I’m 42 and I heard up to 24000. Seriously.
15000 is out of range, but 17-19 gives me a headache and makes me wanna stab something in my head.
I’m 14. I can here 18000.
The sound makes my eyes water and my ears feel weird.
Hmm, I’m 24 and I can hear the 25,000
I’m 34 and I can hear up to 24000.
But I’ve always been sensitive to higher pitched sounds…I can hear a television tube a mile away.
Can you hear this?
FEEEERRRRTRRTTT!!!!
I’m almost 18, and I can hear up to the 19000.
hehe..
The funny thing was….I could hear 24000 but I couldn’t hear 23000…so I went back and listened again.
23000 sounds like the TV in my bedroom….I guess I was so used to it the sound I was blocking it out.
actually I can hear the 25000…but I have to turn my volume above what I would call normal normal room level.
I’m 16, and I could only hear up to 17,000, barely 18,000. Thats wierd.
25. I can hear 19,000 perfectly but 20,000 not at all.
I wonder how much of it is the quality of your speakers and soundcard.
26 years old and only got the 20,000 with my cheap speakers. But I got 22,000 with my iPod headphones. Maybe because it cut out other noise since they are earbuds.
Don’t forget this test is biased due to your headphones/speakers.
If you want to truely take the test go to a doctor.
No here’s what you should do if you have a great sound system. Get a sinewave track that goes from 20Hz to 20,000 Hz and play that.
if you hav a good sound system stuff is going to bounce around in your house at 20Hz but you won’t hear a thing. You will just feel it.
My stereo does 15Hz to 160,000Hz but then I have too much money.
I could hear 20k just fine, but nothing after that. I’m 37.
I can “hear” 15,000 Hz. I can definitely hear 14,000 Hz.
When I say “hear” in quotations I mean that it “fills” my head with a kind of pressure that makes me want to yawn and get my ears to pop.
I’m 28 years old.
Now with headphones…
About the same except I can hear 15,000 Hz a little bit better. But 16,000 Hz not at all.
But then again I’ve always had a slight high frequency tone in my ears since I was a teenager. I’m not sure what that is. Maybe I damaged my eardrums once or something. I’ve gone to a doctor about it but he can’t find anything and thought it was in my head. I swear though, as I’m laying in bed at night I’ll hear a background tone in my ears and I can’t tell if I’m hearing it or it’s being produced by some damage or something in my ears.
I’m 17 and I actually started out with the 25,000, and had to turn down, as my volume as listening to RvB at a normally low volume was WAY too loud.
The reason why some people can hear it is not because of your age, but because of your normal hearing level. If you live in heavily populated areas and work in noisy environments, even as much as a busy office, your hearing is going to degrade. I’ve been fortunate enough to live in a relatively rural area, and I more or less lock myself up in my room because I’m rather anti-social IRL.
However, on the opposite spectrum, my dad is 51, has both lived in a city for a long time, and is a police officer who’s at least heard a gun fired nearby, and of course at the practice range. He can’t even hear screeching brakes.
21, can hear up to 25,000hz you’ll need some hifi headphones/speakers to even produce the sound accurately. so maybe that’s why some of the younger chaps can’t hear the high tones. also you should turn up your sound since it’s hard to hear without the sound cranked.
I’m 18 and I couldn’t hear the 19000hz. Thats what you get for listening to music too loud and going to a bunch of shows in front of the speaker and coming out almost deaf.
19, can hear up to 25k no problem….
I’m 19 and can easily hear the 20000hz. I can just faintly hear 24000hz.
I have a history of migraines due to certain things creating a high pitched noise (CRT monitors/TVs, especially when they’re on but not set to a channel; my dog’s indoor invisible fence unit; my current roommate’s external HDD; etc.) and it really pisses me off…
By the way – “The reason why some people can hear it is not because of your age, but because of your normal hearing level. If you live in heavily populated areas and work in noisy environments, even as much as a busy office, your hearing is going to degrade. I’ve been fortunate enough to live in a relatively rural area, and I more or less lock myself up in my room because I’m rather anti-social IRL.” – is inaccurate. Research this – as a trend, it does go down by age and is independant of living conditions (hell, my 50-odd year old orchestra conductor could hear TVs just as well as I can and he had crappy hearing in one ear and was virtually deaf in the other).
28, and I can hear 17,000 clearly, and up to 20,000 if I turn my volume up really high. Though I’m doing this with crappy laptop speakers, so I may have slightly higher range than that, or be able to hear those tones more clearly in a proper test.
I’m 15 and I can hear up to 23,000.
well, this comes from that story about the shopkeeper setting up a high-frequency sound to run off loitering kids, right? my dad’s a teacher and just had his first day with kids back from summer. in their meetings last week they had to be warned that kids are using these high frequency tones as ringtones so they can send and receive texts discreetly in class. if the teacher isn’t fresh out of college then they shouldn’t be able to hear it.
so it has more uses than just making your head hurt.
I wonder if there’s a way to get your ears back in tune.
I’m not going to try the test since I already have a headache …
But I can say that due to my migraines, I can hear when a TV is on w/o a picture and the sound all the way down, and I can hear when my brother’s X-Box is left on, and the TV turned off. I can hear both of them at the same time and be able to pick out which is which, too.
My computer isn’t very loud, but if it turns itself on during the night (from being on standby), it’ll wake me up even if I was fast asleep.
So yeah … my hearing is really sensitive.
same here, 19,000 Hz
volume all the way up I got to 21,000 Hz
Most decent headphones peak at 20,000 Hz anyway (some lower), so don’t be surprised if you don’t hear anything above that.
25k not a problem and i’m 21 =\
I refuse to take any hearing test whilst my stupidly loud computer fan is on and I have the noise of a main road outside…
I can hear up to 23k fine, 24k I could almost not hear at all, 25k not at all. I’m 20.
I knew I wasn’t just hearing things -.-
And it’s super useful for knowing when someone’s watching TV in the house, but you can’t hear the actual show.
Take THAT adult tyranny!
I turn 15 years old tomorrow and I got up to 19k
I shared this with everyone at work and got some interesting results. We definitely hit upon the problem of different speaker qualities. Now I’m left with the doubt of not being able to hear 20,000 vs. not having speakers that will play 20,000.
Also, I’m very skeptical of the people who say they can “easily” hear up to 25,000, especially those that started there. On some people’s speakers at work, the very high tones played some kind of false tone that was very loud, but clearly lower than some of the lower ones. For those people who claim to be able to hear all of them, make sure that you go up through the tones and that they are really getting higher and at least somewhat fainter all the way up. If that’s the case, so be it, but make sure this “25,000 Hz” you hear so clearly isn’t lower sounding than the 12,000.
@ Bugz: Yeah, I thought I was crazy when I heard a TV. I thought I was some kind of superhero with extra sensitive hearing because my mom couldn’t hear anything and thought I was crazy.
Scott, yer such a kid. :p
I could hear the 25 kHz, but neither me nor the room mate heard the 24 kHz; possibly something in the room cancelling it out.
I got 20000 just fine, but for some reason anything above that produced a broken link.