darkoshi: (Default)
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.
darkoshi: (Default)
It's very hard for me to tell the difference between an MP3 file encoded at a constant bit rate of 64 kbps and the original WAV file. Using foobar 2000's ABX comparator* on John Williams' "Duel of the Fates", I found one small section of the track where I could discern a very faint difference between the 2 versions. With 2 other songs, I couldn't find any sections where I could tell a difference.

With a constant bit rate of 48 kbps, I can tell a slight difference compared to the original WAV.
With a constant bit rate of 24 or 32 kbps, the difference is pretty obvious.

Considering the above, and considering that LAME's V9 variable bit rate setting is nominally 65 kbps, it makes sense that I can't tell any difference between the V9 VBR files and the original WAV files.

And yet V9 is LAME's lowest quality VBR setting. V0 is the best quality, at a nominal 245 kbps.

It puzzles me that some people can discern a difference between the V0 and V2 settings. Their hearing must be phenomenal. Or mine must be really bad. I know that I'm rather tone-deaf, but I didn't think that my overall hearing was bad. Maybe it is because I'm getting old and am missing out on various high notes.


*along with my headphones, or my computer speakers

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