How high can *you* hear?

[darkoshi]

I can hear a 12 kHz sound well. I can hear a 13 kHz sound, but it is very faint unless I turn the volume up. I can hear a 14 kHz sound faintly too, but have to turn the volume even higher. I can't hear 15 kHz, even at high volume.
I'm 40 years old.

In March 2008 (when I was 36 years old), I took the 2nd hearing test below and (by increasing the volume on my computer speakers) was able to hear all the frequencies except the last one. That means that in the last 4 years, I've lost a significant amount of high frequency hearing.

What is the highest frequency you can hear (and do you have to turn the volume up high?), and how old are you?

hearing test 1 (includes 13 and 14 kHz samples)

hearing test 2

hearing test 3

hearing test 4


I was hoping to find some graphs that show for given age groups, what the average highest audible frequencies are. But I didn't find any such graphs. If you know of any, please point them out for me.

I very rarely listen to music with headphones, and when I do, I don't play it very loud. I'm not regularly around loud industrial noise. So I wasn't expecting to have much high frequency hearing loss. But apparently I do.


According to this page, 64 kbps MP3 files cut off at about 11 kHz, and 96 kbps MP3 files cut off at about 15 kHz. Given that I can only hear well up to about 12 kHz, it makes sense that I can't tell the difference between MP3 files encoded at higher than 64 kbps.

Comments

[hebinekohime]

1st test: I can hear the 21kHz sound, but I can't hear 20kHz and I can only just barely hear 19kHz if I turn the volume up. Weird.

2nd test: I can only hear up to 17.7, and only well up to 16.7.

3rd test: I can hear 21kHz again, but not 19 or 20.

4th test: up to 18kHz.

I'm 31.