Am I the only one whose hearing REEKS? (online hearing test)

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/hearing.html

This is a really cool test I found which allows you to chart, more or less, the frequency response of your ears.

I took it & was horrified. The graph says it all (it's a graph of how high the frequencies need to be boosted to give a consistent perceived volume in your brain). To save your results you have to do Alt-PrtSc

I was just wondering what results the rest of you might get. And does anyone have any tips for exercising/improving one's hearing?

i did some research a while back on the subject of improved hearing, while i have not participated in this i found it quite interesting and would like to try it eventually, do a search on google of Dr. Tomatis, he was a nose ear and throat specialist, his parents were opera singers who would send them singers from there theater that had damaged their voices, he later found out a lot about what the ears mean to the person as a whole, really interesting stuff,

anyone that knows about this or has thoughts on his methods feel free to share your opinions and facts

Ok, avoid caffine and salt. Ride a bike everywhere... don't listen to headphones.

I have been running a Paslode Nail gun and Skil saw for most of last month while drinking coffee and eating salty snack foods... I admit... my ears are tired when I go to play with my DAW for a moment or two.

Here's a hint... if CRT monitors like traditional TVs or computer screens don't make you run out of the room all agitated... you're probably normal... but your not as sensitive to 15k as much as you might think ;-)

I'd say eat more salad but some of that stuff is so crunchy I can't hear myself think.

ah heck... eat more salad!!!

best,
mike

I took it & was horrified.

Don't be. That graph is pretty typical. Unfortunately, the lack of resolution at the high end prevents you from knowing exactly where your hearing starts to drop off. That's probably the most critical piece of information you'd want to know, because you'd likely exercise caution when equalizing frequencies above that point.

Not being able to hear much beyond 16KHz isn't really as great a handicap as you might imagine. First of all, there just isn't much happening up there that's musically significant anyway. You could chop most recordings off at 16KHz and hardly notice, even if your hearing was very good.

I know some self-acclaimed golden-ears will howl at that last assertion, but they're the same ones who argued that you can hear the difference between a 10KHz sine wave and a 10KHz square wave. I would challenge anyone to even name a musical instrument that can generate a 16Khz tone (that's about equal to the third harmonic of the highest note on a piano).

  There seems to be those who feel that they can hear
to 20k. I think some of them are "wanna be's". A test
can reveal something but sometimes it isn't an absolute
truth or accurate. I took that same test some time ago.
I also have done other test. they all show different
results. No playback system is "absolutely" flat
from 20 HZ to 20K HZ.

  If you sweep a sine wav from 20 to 20k on a speaker
in say 5 seconds the chart may show an absolute
flat curve. Do that over a period of 30 seconds
and it may look like hills and valleys.

  A test is a good thing but I would be careful
to have a bad feeling about the result. To me
you should feel good to be able to hear as high
as you say. What about those who can't even
hear up to 5K?  13K is about my limit.

  I can hear higher than that but at 13K the level
starts to decline. For me to say I can hear to
say 18K says nothing because it's weak.

bitflipper

I know some self-acclaimed golden-ears will howl at that last assertion, but they're the same ones who argued that you can hear the difference between a 10KHz sine wave and a 10KHz square wave. I would challenge anyone to even name a musical instrument that can generate a 16Khz tone (that's about equal to the third harmonic of the highest note on a piano).

Are those the same guys who can tell the difference between Energizers and Duracells in their guitar pedals?

There are quite a few variables in this experiment. The quality of the audio interface and more importantly the quality and flatness of the response of either the speakers you are using, and in that case the environment plays a significant factor and then there are the headphones as well. And let us not forget the ambient noise level in the room. Then there is the big one. How loud do you think the test frequency has to be before it sounds as loud as the starting reference.

There is no correlation between what results you are likely to get with this experiment and the ability to write, play, record, mix and master well. (Unless your test shows you can't hear anything above 500Hz )

If you want to get your ears tested go to a professional.

No How

Also, the 16khz is very similar to the tingling in the ears when someone's talking about me.  I boosted that one so everyone in the office thinks everyone else is talking about them.

Generally when people are talking about me, it's very sibilant. I hear a lot of

sheesh
pffft
pbbbthhhh
(and on occasion I get a 'chim-chimeny-chim-chimeny-chim-chim-cheree')

So maybe that's why I never notice all the sibilance in my vocal tracks.

But this thread is really reassuring... Bflip & jman make some of the best mixes I've heard. If they have hi-freq loss similar to mine, then I got no problems.

I'd love to blame it on my bad headphones (Bose, pfft), but the truth is my hearing really is lousy starting around 16k or even a bit lower. I do hear the test tones, but there's such a soup of hi-freq whining in that area, that's why I have to crank it. Is that what most peoples' hearing loss is like? Or does it just go silent for most people?

Interesting tidbit I learned from Seinfeld... Schumann suffered from a constant ringing in his ears. Says Jerry: "He went crazy from one note. He couldn't get it out of his head. I think it was an A."

Are those the same guys who can tell the difference between Energizers and Duracells in their guitar pedals?

Exactly. Or the ones who think different brands of CDs have distinct "sounds". Or that audio over USB sounds different than audio over Firewire.

bitflipper

Are those the same guys who can tell the difference between Energizers and Duracells in their guitar pedals?

Exactly. Or the ones who think different brands of CDs have distinct "sounds". Or that audio over USB sounds different than audio over Firewire.

I remember back in about 1996 or so I bought a 3 pack of Memorex CDR's.  Burned a copy of some stuff before I went out on Friday night.  Listened to the CD a couple of times during my drive. And then again a couple of times on my way home....when I noticed that the high frequencies were starting to distort.  And it was getting worse with each subsequent play of the disc.
 
I thought maybe it was the beer....or my imagination.  Until the next day when I listened again. Same story with all 3 of those disks.  Like the high frequency data was degrading or being destroyed by the laser in my car stereo. Very strange.
 
I made it a point to never buy Memorex after that, so I never knew if maybe that was just a bad run of discs, or if it was inherent to Memorex CDR's.

BTW You only really benefit from Star Quad when the regular stuff sounds crummy... at which point you'll think star quad is real nifty.

Right...and back in 1996 there were probably no more than TWO plants that even made media.  Does anyone else remember when a SINGLE CDR cost more $25+?  And that was even if you could find them.

That's why....after only two or three complete spins of a CDR, I was a bit mistified.  It's not like I abused it.  I played it two or three times within a 6 hour period.

I'm not saying I hear a difference between media brands....that would be ****ed.  1's are 1's and 0's are 0's.  But if I remember correctly, these were some of the first ever "gold" CD's.  Most of them at the time were the deep blue and green diazo layer.  My assumption was that had something to do with it.

I just moved back to the trusty 'ol Verbatim that I was buying at the time at Sam's Club.  It was a real bargain....only $40 for a 4-pack.  LOL...

Yeah, Jimmy.  My first CD writer cost me $1,000.  That was an internal 2x SCSI unit.  And it was a piece of crap.  I went through a ton of money screwing up discs back then.  Believe me...it was a deliberated decision every time I contemplated burning anything to disc.

I remember a friend of mine running a pro studio back then was able to charge $100 for every CD he burned...and people would pay it.

My first CD burner was a Marantz CDR630 which would only write to 74 minute CDR's.

Obviously, these became extremely rare the day I bought the machine <doh>

That's interesting, Johannnes. Being unaware of any connection between fluoride and hearing, I googled and found that there is indeed a connection.

Sodium fluoride is actually used as a treatment for some types of hearing loss, in particular otosclerosis, a disease that causes degeneration of the bones in the middle ear. Patients normally take sodium fluoride supplements for life.

So if sodium fluoride can affect those tiny bones, perhaps it is also able to negatively affect them, resulting in a loss of high-frequency sensitivity. Just speculating. But this does suggest that avoiding fluoride, while it worked for you, might not be appropriate for everyone.

EDIT: I did find references that talk about fluoride poisoning - the effects of taking too much of it. Symptoms include vertigo, tinnitus and hearing loss. This is the result, however, of very large doses of fluoride (100 times the therapeutic dose). So far, I have not found any references regarding fluorine as a cause of hearing loss, only as a treatment for hearing loss.

Here is another article on otosclerosis. From it, I learned that the disease is caused by extraneous bone growth on the stapes, the little bone that's the last in the signal chain of your ear. Left untreated, it can result in total deafness. I am confused as to how sodium fluoride, which promotes calcification, has a positive impact on this condition when intuitively it would seem to aggravate it.