[Thad-E-Ginathom]

Catching up wit a couple of pages of posts...
 
I think there were some mistakes in numbers back there along the thread.
 
My hearing is noticeable poor. Bad enough that if we converse, I may have to ask you to repeat yourself here and there, and, if there is a background noise like a crowded room, I will hardly hear at all. 
 
According to last test, it rolls off from 8khz. Most healthy-eared adults can hear much more than that, with the theoretical maximum, probably only seen in youngsters, of 20khz.
 
Pointy-hat medieval scientists would only be relevant to the subject if they had invented sampling theory, or if they had had any form of digital music.  Science is not trying to explain digital music: it invented it.
 
Sampling theory is not the explanation of the music: the music exists because of the sampling theory.
 
Somebody else said that, and I wish I could remember their exact words, because they put it better.

 

[cjl]

  It's entirely possible that his audiologist was right, but he misheard the doc.  

True enough

 

[esldude]

About the audiologist saying you don't hear above 8 khz.  Some 20 years ago, given a hearing test for job promotion, I asked about my hearing and was told it was pretty much perfect.  I asked about the highest frequency they tested at as having heard test tones over my hifi none of them sounded all that high in frequency during his test.  He told me they only tested to 8khz.  I inquired a bit more.  The professional audiologist idea as it was explained to me was in terms of listening to conversations, communicating, etc. there was no handicap whatsoever if hearing was only good to 8 khz and no more.  Further there was an abundance of data on hearing norms and by the time there is any significant damage that was non-trivial it would show up with reduced sensitivity at 8 khz.  Hence no need to test above 8 khz.  I guess the entire professional audiologist world and the researchers that back it up just never happened to learn about our transient discrimination ability to 100 khz. 

 

[Soundsgoodtome]

Seems like their testing and meaning of perfect hearing is based on human speech.

 

[cjl]

I guess the entire professional audiologist world and the researchers that back it up just never happened to learn about our transient discrimination ability to 100 khz. 

We don't have any ability to discriminate transients to 100kHz (unless you happen to be the world's only internet-commenting bat). Most people with good hearing can go up to 15-18kHz though, and younger people with good hearing can go up to 20.

 

[bigshot]

Nothing above 12-14kHz is particularly important to music, so most people have nothing to worry about.

 

[ralphp@optonline]

  We don't have any ability to discriminate transients to 100kHz (unless you happen to be the world's only internet-commenting bat). Most people with good hearing can go up to 15-18kHz though, and younger people with good hearing can go up to 20.

While it is true that mere moral humans can only hear to up to 20kHz but this does not apply for all the golden eared audio writers. In fact their advertisers absolutely demand that anyone editing or writing in any publication in which they advertise have all of the following super human abilities:
 
1) the ability to hear up to a minimum of 96kHz - necessary to review 192kHz high resolution files.
 
2) Ears which can withstand 140db dynamic range - necessary to review 24 bit audio files
 
3) the ability to hear pico second jitter - needed to tell the difference between asynchronous USB and non-asynchronous USB
 
4) the ability to hear the difference between a $200 and $2,000 power cord - needed to sell cable advertising
 
5) the ability to hear the difference between a $10 USB cable and a $500 USB cable - again, needed to sell cable advertising
 
and most importantly:
 
6) the ability to make the readers believe that any the five abilities listed above is real.

 

[SilverEars]

I just looked at my HE-6's specs
 
Frequency Response: 8 to 65 KHz  

  I got moor hertz. 

 

[Duncan]

lol Ralph,

I remember a pair of Technics headphones that were launched 10-15 years ago, where the big promo emblazoned across the box was that their maximum frequency was 100khz...

Whether that was at -50db or not, immaterial, just goes to show your point that marketing does attempt to sell you the impossible...

Actually - here you go, info about them here (edit - the thread I posted was somewhat inane)

 

[esldude]

  We don't have any ability to discriminate transients to 100kHz (unless you happen to be the world's only internet-commenting bat). Most people with good hearing can go up to 15-18kHz though, and younger people with good hearing can go up to 20.

Sorry, didn't have a facetious emoticon to deploy.
 
Yes, as I commented earlier in the thread.  The idea our hearing stops with steady tones at 20 khz (or less) yet responds to transients of 100 khz is a rather loony idea.

 

[esldude]

 
While it is true that mere moral humans can only hear to up to 20kHz but this does not apply for all the golden eared audio writers. In fact their advertisers absolutely demand that anyone editing or writing in any publication in which they advertise have all of the following super human abilities:
 
1) the ability to hear up to a minimum of 96kHz - necessary to review 192kHz high resolution files.
 
2) Ears which can withstand 140db dynamic range - necessary to review 24 bit audio files
 
3) the ability to hear pico second jitter - needed to tell the difference between asynchronous USB and non-asynchronous USB
 
4) the ability to hear the difference between a $200 and $2,000 power cord - needed to sell cable advertising
 
5) the ability to hear the difference between a $10 USB cable and a $500 USB cable - again, needed to sell cable advertising
 
and most importantly:
 
6) the ability to make the readers believe that any the five abilities listed above is real.

Actually all they need is #6 on your list.  And it is quite apparent they have that ability in spades. 

 

[ralphp@optonline]

What's the misinformation? That's all on the subjective side of the street. If someone says something sounds better to them, what's to argue?

se

There is quite a bit to argue. To wit:
 
Let's say that I come home after shopping at the local mall and tell my wife that I saw Abe Lincoln shopping in Macys - no someone who looked a lot like Lincoln but actually Lincoln himself in the flesh. Now hopefully my wife would just tell me that I'm either totally mistaken or completely crazy and things would end there. But now what if I was so insistent that I really saw Abe Lincoln that I decided to set up a booth and sell tickets at $100 each for your chance to see Lincoln alive and in the flesh. Hopefully people would realize that I was either completely crazy or some kind of scam artist. Soon ticket sales would fall off to zero. End of story.
 
Now suppose I write for some super slick high end audio publication and I say that I can clearly hear the difference between a 24bit/96kHz digital audio file and a 16bit/44.1kHz digital audio (dithered and resampled from the 24bit/96kHz digital audio file) and what's more clearly stated that the high price of the 24bit/96kHz digital audio file was therefore totally justified. However I provide absolutely no proof other then my word of honor. And furthermore, that no one else is able to tell the difference between the two files in any ABX test.
 
So please explain to me how the first scenario differs form the second scenario. Note: I used the example of high resolution digital audio files but I could have instead used the proclaimed differences between digital audio cables as an even better example.

 

[Thad-E-Ginathom]

Well, if you tell them that, if only they trusted their own ears, they could hear the same things, they would hear them too, and everybody is happy. And you get the money.
 
All those of us that try to cling to any sort of truth do is to make people unhappy.
 
How about... we all give up and join the happy club?
 

 

[elmoe]

Not at my wallet's expense.

 

[ralphp@optonline]

  Well, if you tell them that, if only they trusted their own ears, they could hear the same things, they would hear them too, and everybody is happy. And you get the money.
 
All those of us that try to cling to any sort of truth do is to make people unhappy.
 
How about... we all give up and join the happy club?
 

Do you mean that we should all move to Colorado? I know that with a little herbal help I too can hear 100kHz, and not just transients.