Human Hearing.....

[3db]

SInce this all about audio/hearing, I wonder if any knows of any examples of people with exceptional hearing along the same lines as Chuck yeager who had 40/20vision.

Although I don't consider my hearing exceptional anymore, at the age of 18, I could easily hear the 18.5KHz whine of the old beater oscilloscopes the first year electronics students were using. It used to give me headaches.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

[Semi j/k] yes, and we called them by name KIDS
Past 20 something your hearing abilities begins to deteriorate ...
I'm 33 and I can't hear 18.5k tone anymore

 

[highfigh]

SInce this all about audio/hearing, I wonder if any knows of any examples of people with exceptional hearing along the same lines as Chuck yeager who had 40/20vision.

Although I don't consider my hearing exceptional anymore, at the age of 18, I could easily hear the 18.5KHz whine of the old beater oscilloscopes the first year electronics students were using. It used to give me headaches.

In high school, they had ultrasonic motion detectors and my brother & I could hear them. I later found out that they worked in the range of 23K, although it's possible that I was hearing some sub-harmonic. It definitely wasn't a octave lower, though and it was more like a feeling of pressure than a specific tone but it was immediately felt when they were turned on or off. I have used my tone generator in TrueRTA and on a test disc to find out how sensitive to frequency changes I am and I'm consistently able to hear 1Hz differences in the sub-500Hz range. I haven't tried it in the upper areas but it will be harder to perceive because 1Hz difference is a far higher percentage as the frequency decreases.

I can still easily hear transformer squeal in TVs as a definite pitch, and that's about 17,750Hz.

My brother and I have extremely good sense of relative pitch, musically, and we can both name most notes just by hearing them (this is the reason I have a hard time listening to so many singers, like Emmylou Harris). Our mom could sing on pitch but when she whistled, it was like bamboo shoots under our fingernails and we would both start squirming whenever she would start.

The odd thing is that he was adopted.

 

[highfigh]

[Semi j/k] yes, and we called them by name KIDS
Past 20 something your hearing abilities begins to deteriorate ...
I'm 33 and I can't hear 18.5k tone anymore

I'm still trying to figure out how little kids can make the squealing sound that can be heard through 18" of concrete.

That's a great Bender quote.

 

[Rickster71]

SInce this all about audio/hearing, I wonder if any knows of any examples of people with exceptional hearing along the same lines as Chuck Yeager who had 40/20vision.

That would be my wife.
I can call her 2 or 3 times and she won't hear a thing.
Though, if I mumble something about her under my breath while in another room, she will hear that!

 

[skers_54]

There's some research showing that humans can hear ultrasonic frequencies through bone conduction. They don't really know how it works, but it's interesting because bone conduction is commonly thought to be more involved with low frequency hearing.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19848237?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=2

Anecdotally, blind people tend to develop hyper-sensitive hearing. It's thought that this is due to a reallocation of brain resources to enhance other senses.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19426816?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=8

 

[mtrycrafts]

...

I can still easily hear transformer squeal in TVs as a definite pitch, and that's about 17,750Hz.

....

That's at 15.75kHz

 

[mtrycrafts]

There's some research showing that humans can hear ultrasonic frequencies through bone conduction. They don't really know how it works, but it's interesting because bone conduction is commonly thought to be more involved with low frequency hearing.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19848237?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=2

...]

Without reading the full paper, I would think that the transmitter has to be in contact with the body and perhaps on the head. I doubt this would work through air transmission as that has been demonstrated not to be felt nor heard.

 

[highfigh]

That's at 15.75kHz

Nitpicker!

Next time I need to use my RTA software (which will be very soon), I'll do some sine wave listening to find out how high I can hear it. I'll be able to see the amplitude using the oscilloscope function too, and that will give me a way to find out how much deviation from flat I am.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Nitpicker!

Next time I need to use my RTA software (which will be very soon), I'll do some sine wave listening to find out how high I can hear it. I'll be able to see the amplitude using the oscilloscope function too, and that will give me a way to find out how much deviation from flat I am.

Just be careful if you are using speakers.I blew a tweeter like that, once.

By the way, that number is arrived by the scan rate of NTSC 525 lines * 30.

 

[WmAx]

I could hear up to 25kHz; this was using extended response tweeter and Wavetek signal generator to sweep signals. That was when I was 17. Today I can hear up to 18.5kHz; I am 34.

-Chris

 

[highfigh]

Just be careful if you are using speakers.I blew a tweeter like that, once.

By the way, that number is arrived by the scan rate of NTSC 525 lines * 30.

How would I do this test without speakers? I'm not gonna jab the probes into my ears, ya know.

Repeat after me- "This site is called AUDIOHOLICS, not Videoholics".

I only used that number because that's what I was told years ago. To be honest, I don't really care what the frequency is- I just find it annoying.

 

[yepimonfire]

i wondered how good my hearing was once and i had a program that could generate sine waves and a pair of headphones with a frequency response of 5hz-30khz, tested what i could hear and what i couldnt. it topped off at 25khz and went as low as 15hz so i have pretty good hearing.

 

[ski2xblack]

http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=14232

Any AES members or E-Lib subscribers care to give us the cliffs notes version of this? Could be relevant in this discussion.

 

[yepimonfire]

How would I do this test without speakers? I'm not gonna jab the probes into my ears, ya know.

Repeat after me- "This site is called AUDIOHOLICS, not Videoholics".

I only used that number because that's what I was told years ago. To be honest, I don't really care what the frequency is- I just find it annoying.

i highly doubt it will damage your speakers, ive been doing random sine wave tests and all sorts of other audio tests i can come up with just for the heck of it and have never ever damaged my speakers. just dont turn them too loud and you should be fine.

 

[ski2xblack]

Here's a trove of info on human hearing/sound systems and other stuff folks like us may like:

http://www.silcom.com/~aludwig/contents.htm

 

[highfigh]

i highly doubt it will damage your speakers, ive been doing random sine wave tests and all sorts of other audio tests i can come up with just for the heck of it and have never ever damaged my speakers. just dont turn them too loud and you should be fine.

Any pure tone can easily damage speakers if A) the signal level is too high or B) the duration is excessive. Pure tones cause more heat in the voice coil than pink noise because it's not random and/or intermittent.

 

[skers_54]

Without reading the full paper, I would think that the transmitter has to be in contact with the body and perhaps on the head. I doubt this would work through air transmission as that has been demonstrated not to be felt nor heard.

Yeah, that's the definition of bone conduction. I should have explained that. It would most likely be a micro-oscillator placed on the mastoid process (behind the ear). This research shows that humans have the ability to interpret ultrasonic signals presented to the cochlea. However, our conduction system from the air to the cochlea seems to be limited in its ability to relay ultrasonics.

 

[3db]

Yeah, that's the definition of bone conduction. I should have explained that. It would most likely be a micro-oscillator placed on the mastoid process (behind the ear). This research shows that humans have the ability to interpret ultrasonic signals presented to the cochlea. However, our conduction system from the air to the cochlea seems to be limited in its ability to relay ultrasonics.

This probably a very good thing espcially for people who study bats. According to a park specialists who studied bats, the echo location used by bats are in excess of 130db.

"you think rock concerts are loud, you should hear the bats. An article published in the open-access journal PLoS ONE finds that bats emit sounds that are above the human threshold of pain.

Researcher Annemarie Surlykke (Institute of Biology, SDU, Denmark) and her colleague Elisabeth Kalko (University of Ulm, Germany) investigated the patterns and behavior of echolocation in 11 species of insect-eating tropical bats from Panamá. The bats use a sonar system to capture insect prey at night, and the researchers reconstructed these flight paths using arrays of microphones and photographic methods. These models were used to estimate the intensity of sound that was emitted during the flights.

Surlykke and Kalko found that bats emit a sound that is stronger than any other animal in air. The exceptionally loud sounds exceed 140 decibels (dB) SPL (Sound Pressure Level measured at 10 cm from the bat's mouth). This is louder than the 115 - 120 dB that is emitted at a loud rock concert and the 120 dB human threshold of pain."

 

[skers_54]

This probably a very good thing espcially for people who study bats. According to a park specialists who studied bats, the echo location used by bats are in excess of 130db.

"you think rock concerts are loud, you should hear the bats. An article published in the open-access journal PLoS ONE finds that bats emit sounds that are above the human threshold of pain.

Researcher Annemarie Surlykke (Institute of Biology, SDU, Denmark) and her colleague Elisabeth Kalko (University of Ulm, Germany) investigated the patterns and behavior of echolocation in 11 species of insect-eating tropical bats from Panamá. The bats use a sonar system to capture insect prey at night, and the researchers reconstructed these flight paths using arrays of microphones and photographic methods. These models were used to estimate the intensity of sound that was emitted during the flights.

Surlykke and Kalko found that bats emit a sound that is stronger than any other animal in air. The exceptionally loud sounds exceed 140 decibels (dB) SPL (Sound Pressure Level measured at 10 cm from the bat's mouth). This is louder than the 115 - 120 dB that is emitted at a loud rock concert and the 120 dB human threshold of pain."

That's insanely loud! I'm glad we can't hear that otherwise my ears (and tweeters) would explode every time I watched the Planet Earth Caves episode. According to the book below, dolphins echolcation signals can reach 230 dB!

http://books.google.com/books?id=qjemeaVFBTUC&pg=PA392&lpg=PA392&dq=dolphin+echolocation+spl&source=bl&ots=bq3T0cGMBI&sig=lZkgY_Upt9ySYp6cnPSALvBHYw4&hl=en&ei=i-yFS_fLFYi6NvXK5bUM&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=dolphin echolocation spl&f=false