[rahimlee54]

My wife got an Ipod Touch recently and they have a dog whistle app I was trying on my dog.  He or a couple other dogs didn't even pay it any attention, so I started seeing how high I could hear it.  We were visiting some friends and I decided they could try too.  They were both in their late 20s and they could only hear up to 15kHz, I was a little surprised.  Both my wife and I are only a few years younger than them and we could both easily go over 17kHz.  I know we have all tried it out back a few months ago, but I thought it was interesting how bad their hearing is. 

Jared

[gthomas]

Although not an ENT doc, I am a doctor and I remember in training how we learned about hearing loss.  High frequency is the first to go and almost always in men first.  I am 64 and my wife is 54.  things will sound harsh to her and fine to me!  Remember that when you get a bunch of people together and do a shootout like they do over on AVS forum..  I always get a kick out of them matching cables and matching volume, but there is no way to match ears!! :Dbunch

[PMAT]

Hear like a butterfly..... sing like a bee...  Hey you youngsters, I have hearing up to about 16,500 HZ without turning up the volume and I am 51. I do, however, have to hold my nose and blow my left ear canal open to get good imaging and sparkle with music. Consider yourself lucky if your hearing is good. Protect your hearing people!

[low.pfile]

There are so many facets to this topic. Funn, I was thinking about just one of them today.

just a few....

1. Many take years to finally save enough money and have enough space for high fidelity audio gear. But by that time our hearing diminishes. Sure there are exceptions (like PMAT) but it's known we lose high frequency sensitivity as we age. I am 43, I can hear around 15k(self test) a coworker who's gone to a few too many punk shows cannot hear 15k.

2. Relatedly, those who design and build our custom equipment are typically in the above 39 bracket too. how is their hearing? Sure there is empirical testing, but we all know good specs do not make the component!

3. Differences in hearing ability, both range and levels due to differences in natural physiology, ear damage, etc. Some folks have worked in manufacturing, transportation, other loud environments. We all talk about sound qualities but what we each hear cannot be the same. I always keep that in mind.

and yeah, youngins, protect those ears!

[mort]

Im not sure if it is accurate but a free dowload of AUDACITY is available. I used this program to convert all of my old dying casset tapes into wav files before they got warped. In dooing this I discoverd that Audacity has a tone generator under the generate tab. Wave formats seem lower than I would expect however its fun to play with. 20000 is as high as she will go. As an audio engineer we would always test the lmits using graphic equilizers I would put my art institute interns through the paces so that they would be able to determin exatly what freq was feeding back and go right to that attenuator. Hopefuly before the pre maddonas on stage would get pissed off!

[Srgtfury]

Although not an ENT doc, I am a doctor and I remember in training how we learned about hearing loss.  High frequency is the first to go and almost always in men first.  I am 64 and my wife is 54.  things will sound harsh to her and fine to me!  Remember that when you get a bunch of people together and do a shootout like they do over on AVS forum..  I always get a kick out of them matching cables and matching volume, but there is no way to match ears!! :Dbunch

That pattern of decrease in auditory acuity that you describe is proof that there is a God..what, with women having higher pitched voicing and all....The good news is that, no matter,  they can't really do damage to your soul, which is at the arch of the Aorta, as any thoracic surgeon knows...

Thank you very much

Fury