Anyone ever check the high frequency response of their hearing?
I was fooling around a few weeks ago, and I found that my ears ( or my test speaker ) just stop at 14.75 KHz. The scope showed the amp was still putting out it's nominal power, so it wasn't that.
14 KHz is such a shrill pitch it causes me to wonder why 20KHz seems to be the generally accepted cut off for " hi - fi ". Looks useless to me to extend frequency response that high.
My sensitivity seems good though, maybe even exceptional - even after years of really loud rock, aviation, and small arms.
Win W5JAG
I was fooling around a few weeks ago, and I found that my ears ( or my test speaker ) just stop at 14.75 KHz. The scope showed the amp was still putting out it's nominal power, so it wasn't that.
14 KHz is such a shrill pitch it causes me to wonder why 20KHz seems to be the generally accepted cut off for " hi - fi ". Looks useless to me to extend frequency response that high.
My sensitivity seems good though, maybe even exceptional - even after years of really loud rock, aviation, and small arms.
Win W5JAG
As a youngster at the tender age of 14, I remember complaining that the 15.625kHZ line whistle, from our new Ferguson 2500 CTV, was driving me up the wall. My Dad couldn't hear it, in fact couldn't hear the 10kHZ whistle from the 405line B&W TV.
Now, being over 60, I have around 13kHZ usable in my left ear and due to a JBL PA horn exploding into my right ear, it cuts off at about 7kHZ. Anything above that is lost in the tinnitus whistle.
Maybe that is why I won't improve my HiFi. What would be the point.
20kHZ has been the standard cut off for as long as I can remember. As w5jag says, we can't hear it so it is not needed and indeed is a waste of energy from the power amps.
Strange as how 44.1kHZ was the beat frequency of CDs and 19kHZ the pilot frequency for FM Stereo.
Now, being over 60, I have around 13kHZ usable in my left ear and due to a JBL PA horn exploding into my right ear, it cuts off at about 7kHZ. Anything above that is lost in the tinnitus whistle.
Maybe that is why I won't improve my HiFi. What would be the point.
20kHZ has been the standard cut off for as long as I can remember. As w5jag says, we can't hear it so it is not needed and indeed is a waste of energy from the power amps.
Strange as how 44.1kHZ was the beat frequency of CDs and 19kHZ the pilot frequency for FM Stereo.
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There was a very interesting, and eye opening, demonstration at a DIY loudspeaker group meeting that I was present for a couple of years ago. The presenter had a plasma tweeter running, driven by a function generator (and amplifier I guess). The plasma tweeter had wide bandwidth, I think up to 50kHz or so and it was clear as a bell across the room.
The presenter slowly selected higher and higher frequencies via the generator and then called out the frequency. Everyone could immediately tell when they could no longer hear anything.
I made it up to 14k but 15k was silent. I'm in my late 40's. I now have a much different perspective on the requirements for high frequency extension in my loudspeaker projects!
I have listened to Siegfried Linkwitz's Pluto speaker and I didn't have the sense that the sound was closed in or rolled off - if you look at the measured frequency response it really drops off around 15k, just about where my hearing ends:
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The presenter slowly selected higher and higher frequencies via the generator and then called out the frequency. Everyone could immediately tell when they could no longer hear anything.
I made it up to 14k but 15k was silent. I'm in my late 40's. I now have a much different perspective on the requirements for high frequency extension in my loudspeaker projects!
I have listened to Siegfried Linkwitz's Pluto speaker and I didn't have the sense that the sound was closed in or rolled off - if you look at the measured frequency response it really drops off around 15k, just about where my hearing ends:
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I blew an Emit with some distorted guitar or hip hop - amplifier at max as usual...maybe it was 17 years ago for me too
That 2" Aurasound really drops off at that point - I use it as a mid crossed to an
AMT mini8 at about 10 kHz ( both now sell for less than 20 $ )
I definitely don't agree with that...
Maybe you can expound on this technical terms "mess with" that you toss about? And this "affect each other" stuff, well, not really in this context. Unless you can convince me otherwise.
I strongly doubt (very strongly actually) that you did indeed HEAR the third harmonic. I suspect that you did hear SOMETHING, and attributed this to "the third harmonic of 15kHz". Much more likely is that there was some kind of IM distortion happening as well and you HEARD the lower tone(s) that were generated, or your heard the modulation envelope of the combination of distortion products present. 45kHz = no way.
For example, you can play a 30kHz tone and a 31 kHz tone and hear something. What you hear is the 1kHz modulation envelope. I believe that there are some transducer systems that use this principle to employ multiple ultrasonic sources to "generate" audio frequency signals.
Edit: link to info on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_from_ultrasound
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13k is about it for me at normal levels. When I was 21 I could reach just over 19k, but it took some volume to get there. The ~16kHz tube TV whine used to drive me up the wall, but just a few years later I could only hear it on really loud TV's, or when I was really close, or where there was a display with lots of them. By 30 or so it no longer bothered me. I took my RS SPL meter nearby and it registered a tone around 70dB (so probably actually 75-80dB) but I couldn't hear it.
I carefully measured the sound output of the speaker. I used a 1/4in B&K microphone and an HP FFT analyzer to be sure that there was only 15Khz and 45KHz. There were no IM products messing with the sound.
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