Hearing and listening methods

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Client Eastwood

Well-known member
Ive just watched the Source Direct video posted by Droid and they were talking about listening to music loud on headphones. I listen to music at work on headphones at what I would consider sensible levels. Tho i guess when Im walking around in traffic its louder than I think. Im using buds for for the above.

At home I my turn the headphones loud maybe a couple of hours a week using on ear heapdphones. Otherwise home listening is on speakers at neighbour friendly level.

Ive just taken this unscientific test,
http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2009/02/hearing-test-hear-like-teenager/

I can hear the up to 12 but not the 14 khz. Given that most people on here listen to more music than the average joe would this be normal for you lot too ?
 
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droid

Guest
I could easily hear that one and I'm well over 25. Checking out the hearing test I found that I do OK up to about 19Khz, then theres a gap and I can hear 22khz...

It seems that being a hermit and not going out to clubs often does have its advantages!
 
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T

Tanadan

likes things
I've been very interested in this topic, as my ears seem to be more sensitive then average, and deafness runs in my family. Basically, from what I have read and heard from ENT doctors, loud music will damage your hearing, and the main sign of this is tinnitus - whenever you hear a particular frequency of ringing, the hair cells responsible for that frequency (or frequency range, I'm not sure) are dying from over-excitation and creating the tinnitus noise as their parting shot. However, the music doesn't have to be loud - extremely loud over a short period of time is likely to cause damage, but it is possible for lesser damage to happen from quiet music over a very long space of time. (On this note, I always wonder about the hearing of record store employees, esp. the Phonica/BM Soho type - somehow I imagine the constant music grates away their hearing slowly but surely, leading them to turn up the beats to compensate vicious-cycle style...) If you're interested in these lengths of time, there are tables on the net, published by employee safety-ish organizations etc., but the interesting one is that 8+ hours of completely normal, quiet music/sound is deemed 'unsafe'.

Headphones have, perceptually, louder bass than the same signal on most speakers. MP3s exacerbate this - I don't know anything about how the algorithm works, but I find that the lower bitrate the mp3, the muddier the bass, and the less present the hi-end - leading you to turn up the track to a point where you can hear the hi-end properly and so end up with loads of mid- and lo-end. (lol, mid-end.)

Possible effects of music: it's possible for loud bass to trigger nausea and involutary movement in people (this is the unfortunate reason that I don't go to clubs anymore). Also, now going away completely from the topic of the thread, some Japanese researchers have found that sounds which contain frequencies over the threshold of hearing (ie. usually above 20kHz) affect how much we enjoy music - usually that range isn't reproduced by speakers, so this is an effect you'll mainly get with 'real' music, esp. tinkly, hi-endy stuff: the researchers tested it with gamelan. And this effect seems to be unrelated to your ears; it works through your skin somehow. So perhaps don't give up all hope if you can't hear all the way up to 20kHz. And of course, people are different, etc....
 
C

Client Eastwood

Well-known member
Hmmm that’s interesting Tanadan cos all my own CDs have been ripped at 320 vbr and compared to the original CD the bass is always muddier. This is noticeable on my home speakers and on headphones. And I rarely listen to the CD once Ive ripped it, instead its played using an mp3 player connected to the hifi. Plus Im listening more and more downloaded mixes which are usually less than 192. So I wonder if my ears are getting tired so to speak and I should take a month off or something.

I don’t have any symptons of tinitus unless Ive been out to a dance which is very rare nowadays.

Very interested in the last paragraph so any links to follow up would be happily recieved.
 
D

Dunninger

-
droid said:
I could easily hear that one and I'm well over 25. Checking out the hearing test I found that I do OK up to about 19Khz, then theres a gap and I can hear 22khz...
Click to expand...

I had that too, but I wouldn't trust a hearing test based on an mp3 file. I actually perceived the really high frequencies as lower than those at 15khz, so I'd guess that this is the result of encoding artefacts or something like that.
 
4linehaiku

4linehaiku

Repetitive
Yeah i got it right, but it took me a while. My friend constantly complains at me that 320s sound 'awful' and that only flac will do blah blah blah, and his main beef is the cymbols, so I listened carefully for them.
I think the difference would be more obvious if my speakers weren't total crap. A big bassline makes it easier to spot too in my experience.

As for the hearing test, I could do up to 19k, but I majorly unconvinced by 20k and above. Doesn't MP3 encoding specifically remove these sort of frequencies?
 
slim jenkins

slim jenkins

El Hombre Invisible
Lots of people hear...but don't listen...what did Stravinsky say? A duck also hears? Myself included. I listen only at average volume indoors for the sake of the neighbour. Also headphones on the mobile disc-player, which does heighten the listening experience - especially needed for stuff like Parmegiani. I DJ'd for years without doing damage, luckily, but know a drummer whose listening is f*cked...possibly from playing with Psychik TV.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
This seems like a good thing to wack on when you're peaking on acid

(insert wag joke about "wack on" cos its the masturbator typing)
 
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