Give your speakers/headphones/ears a workout....

[henwrench]

Invaluable really...

         used to have all this stuff on a CD many years ago...

                                                                     henwrench

          http://www.audiocheck.net/soundtestsaudiotesttones_index.php

[henwrench]

Really quite pleased to find that I can hear the sweep down tone come in at 17khz. I thought I'd be much lower than that, given my age and the extreme sound levels my ears have been battered by over the years. And obviously the 20hz is no problem, at least it's good to know my headphones go that low...

                                                         henwrench

[Oldrottenhead]

oh dear i didnt start hearing it until 14 khz

[Oldrottenhead]

or is that good?

[Greeny]

I thought these Panasonic headphones were good. This has proved it. Cheers!

[henwrench]

or is that good?

   'Fraid not, wee man. The human ears should go from 20hz Low - 20kHz Hi....so 14kHz, while nothing to worry about, does show a slight impairment. Could be what you're listening on though...try different speakers/cans if you have any....cloth ears! 

                                                      henwrench

[Farrell Jackson]

Hey henwrench thanks for posting this hearing test up! According to the hearing loss test, I have mild to moderate hearing loss at all frequencies but more so at the 4k range where I have a definite moderate loss. I'm better as it nears the 8k range. Ummmm let's see, now what is the top end of a screaming Tele into a 135 watt 2x10 valve amp? It's about 5k. I guess I should have stood farther away from my amp for those 40 years of gigging at volume #11, lol. I already knew I had hearing loss at 5k so the test is accurate.

Farrell

[Oldrottenhead]

what?

[henwrench]

Pardon!!

[64Guitars]

The human ears should go from 20hz Low - 20kHz Hi....so 14kHz, while nothing to worry about, does show a slight impairment.

Frequency ranges without a decibel variance are not very meaningful. Audio manufacturers state frequency responses of 20-20000 Hz all the time but it means nothing. It could vary ±0.5 dB or ±30 dB, for example. On high-end audio equipment from a reputable manufacturer, the decibel variance will always be stated along with the frequency range. But manufacturers of low-end audio products just give the frequency range because they don't want to embarrass themselves. Saying that a piece of equipment has a frequency response of 20-20K may not be a lie but it's not very honest either. It's a marketing trick to fool consumers.

Human hearing response is nowhere near flat, even in a healthy young person. When I was about 20, I was curious as to whether playing in a rock band and going to concerts was affecting my hearing so I had my doctor send me for an audiogram. The lab technician who conducted the test told me my hearing was just fine. I asked if I could see the audiogram and was surprised to find that it looked like a roller coaster and dropped off considerably past 10 kHz! Yet this was considered normal hearing for a 20-year-old male. As we get older, our sensitivity to frequencies above 2,000 Hz diminishes. We can still hear most of those frequencies if they're loud enough but they don't sound as loud relative to 2,000 Hz or lower.

Here's a chart from Wikipedia that shows typical thresholds of hearing for male (M) and female (W) subjects between the ages of 20 and 60.



You can see that a sound at only 6 kHz has to be about 18 dB louder than a 2 kHz sound in order to be heard by a 50-year-old male. So you can imagine how much louder it needs to be at 14 kHz! At 20 kHz, most 50-year-olds won't be able to detect the sound at all. That's normal and nothing to worry about.

I should add the caveat that I'm not a medical expert - this is just my own understanding of human hearing response based on what I've read and my audiogram experience. So if I've got anything wrong, I hope Alfredo will feel free to correct me.