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Hearing to only 12khz. More of a problem than you think?

L

L. Larabee

Active Member
The problem is the harmonic content of the instruments. How much of it do you need to hear, 3rd, 4th, 5th, even more?
Even though the fundamental frequency of any musical instrument tops out at 4/5khz at 12khz all you would hear is the 2nd or 3rd harmonic of some intruments and only the 4th and 5th of many instruments. If you are an old guy or otherwise have hearing damage should you be commenting about fidelity in any case with a hearing restriction such as this.
 
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I am probably also there with you…on the positive end for me one of my speakers has a Fountek ribbon that has a peak at/about 12k and it seems to give music a tiny bit of more micro detail.
 
Its basically a situation of you can worry about what you aren't hearing, or you can enjoy what you do. If hearing aids can correct it and you want to go that route, awesome, otherwise you're basically stuck with what you got.

I've had tinnitus for years and I generally claim tin ear. Whether or not they are related I don't know, but its not something I can do anything about so I ignore it as much as I possibly can. Basically I notice it when I actively think about it, so I just don't.


if we're going to get into a situation where only people with certified golden ears can make comments on what sounds good, thats going to boot a whole lot of us out. That leaves people under about 20, and the rare older person who has managed to get through life without hearing damage or decline for various reasons. I'm not interested in setting up a stereo to please some sort of certified listener that doesn't actually live with it, its for me.
 
gadget73 said:
I've had tinnitus for years and I generally claim tin ear. Whether or not they are related I don't know, but its not something I can do anything about so I ignore it as much as I possibly can. Basically I notice it when I actively think about it, so I just don't.
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i can't not notice mine. loud music played a part but being stupid and not wearing ear protection in the bodyshop and paint booths for 30+ years trashed my ears. it's not even a ringing, it's past that. i've got to have a fan on behind my head when i sleep just to drown it out. it's pretty miserable.

any youngsters out there reading this. put earplugs in.
 
I know i'm not hearing much over 13k anymore. I don't seem to enjoy music less. I'd guess part is there's little content above that (harmonics and all) also i think your brain tends to compensate a bit. Probably varies from person to person. Otherwise my hearing is still pretty good. As Gadget said, not worth worrying about it.
 
I tested my HF hearing a couple of years ago and discovered I dropped off around 11.5k. But since the dropoff happened over many years, I didn't really notice it, and music sounds the same as I remember when I was younger.
 
I did a kind of unscientific testing just a year or two ago that I found online and the top of my hearing only went up to something like 14 or 15k. I still feel like my hearing is pretty sensitive though (I wear hearing protection when I rehearse with my band) and I still feel like I can hear those silvery upper harmonics, even if in terms of measurement there's a lot that's missing. For my money, if you still feel that you can hear a lot of details in the music then you're good. As soon as I get the feeling that my hearing has dulled a bit though, I'll have something to complain about!
 
You will never lose the vast majority of your hearing range in terms of music, and its barely noticeable. It reads badly as an every so often news article, buts it natural.

Protect your hearing from damage. Anything that leaves your ears ringing is probably bad news, some audiologist will probably tell me that's foolish, but I have always been overly careful with it all my life. I would be more concerned with balance. One classic is the guy that drives with his window open all his life. Left ear always hears worse as a result of long term damage. This kind of thing.

Now that doesn't mean you stood next to a PA speaker on the right at the last concert, so you have to do the left now. It means stand back or use proper earplugs.
 
I have a AK gathering at my place each spring and I mentioned to several attendees this year that due to my high end hearing loss the Magnapans may be too bright. I told them I can cut the top end back via the crossover if needed, but all of them said it sounded fine to them. I still enjoy them every day even with my hearing issues..
 
I determined a while back, just using a tone generator on my system, that I could not really hear above about 12,000 Hz.

Then later, I listened to some line-array speakers that a gentleman built that included twelve 7" Dayton Audio Esoteric midwoofers and nine BG Neo8 PDR tweeters in each speaker. He used DEQX as an active crossover and EQ in the system. There were several people there and he showed us by projecting the laptop screen on his TV that he could change the EQ on the fly. He changed the curve at 13,000 Hz to maybe 13,500. I could easily hear the difference and it was not a change for the better. I realize that this is likely just harmonics that I heard but it convinced me that while I may not be able to hear those tones, they can be important to what I actully hear in a piece of music.

Alan
 
The consonants are the first to go, according to my wife's audiologist, and I occasionally confuse some nowadays. Her hearing-aid experiences have been a saga all by themselves, with the dog chewing one, and another getting lost. I got her a clarity-enhancing soundbar, but it is set instead to 5.1 and used for more volume. With her family-room TV on at one end of the house in our open floor plan, and my own TV on in my bedroom at the opposite end of the house, the relative volume is equal just at my bedroom door. I have recently realized I'm not listening as much as I'm used to, and it's affecting my sense of equilibrium. Our $5K free dog is now at another home, (because of aggressiveness, not damage), and the hearing issues remain unsolved. I have a slightly lesser opinion of both my wife and myself than I used to.

Anyone who wants to make remarks today about my hearing as an old man, might want to think twice. I may bite your head off before placing you on Ignore.

Or not. :)
 
ehoove said:
I have a AK gathering at my place each spring and I mentioned to several attendees this year that due to my high end hearing loss the Magnapans may be too bright. I told them I can cut the top end back via the crossover if needed, but all of them said it sounded fine to them. I still enjoy them every day even with my hearing issues..
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fair guess most of us aren't doing too much better in the ear function department than you are.
 
ehoove said:
I have a AK gathering at my place each spring and I mentioned to several attendees this year that due to my high end hearing loss the Magnapans may be too bright. I told them I can cut the top end back via the crossover if needed, but all of them said it sounded fine to them. I still enjoy them every day even with my hearing issues..
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Yes, but most of us there were old guys too!:)
 
gadget73 said:
if we're going to get into a situation where only people with certified golden ears can make comments on what sounds good, thats going to boot a whole lot of us out. That leaves people under about 20, and the rare older person who has managed to get through life without hearing damage or decline for various reasons. I'm not interested in setting up a stereo to please some sort of certified listener that doesn't actually live with it, its for me.
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Thanks for that Gadget.

My hearing drops off pretty significantly after 9500hz these days, and I'm completely out of the game past 12000hz. Nevertheless, within the range that I can hear, I feel like I can still make pretty accurate judgements as to sound quality. Which leads me to the point. How high you can hear into the high frequency registers is not the ONLY measure of how good your hearing is and hence not the only criteria for whether or not you can judge quality sound.

Make no mistake, I'm not happy about the loss in ability to hear higher frequencies, and it is noticeable to me, particularly on musical material I'm familiar with from my younger years where I absolutely KNOW what I'm missing. But I still enjoy music.
 
I have been dubbing mono and Stereo records from the 50 and 60's that my friend loaned me. The first thing I noticed was they sound more like real live classical concerts because the highs start rolling off just be fore 7 khz and are gone by 10 to 12 Khz totally. I double checked my observation using my audio spectrum analyzer to confirm my listening experience. Its probably some times why I have trouble with modern recordings where the performers are miked to closely and mics are used have accented high ends. This really applies to Deutsche Gramophone since digital came along. Unfortunately when they reissued their previous Lp's on Cd they pushed the HF's which spoiled the original recordings in my mind. Back in the 60's the recording were smooth and easy to listen to with a good blend of the performing space, too. Even on the mono recordings. No wober people want to keep their tube stuff to brig back authenticity to modern recordings. Some times recently it seems to me this interpretation of sound in a concert hall sounds like it is being pushed toward a more studio sound that I don't always enjoy. Fortunately Telarc carried on the tradition most of the time as have Chandos and sometimes Reference Recordings. Sheffield succeeded a lot of times too along with Command's classical recordings. Sony taking over Columbia was a big mistake and RCA has seemed to step away a bit too.

So if your hearing is basically flat to 9000 HZ before rolling off you should be good t0 go for classical music. But if you are into big band Jazz and small group jazz I can see loosing your highs will color the sound specially for the Trap set and other percussive instruments. You are lucky! At least when it comes to pop and rock and roll. The roll of highs will curtail the distortion I hear all the time and what turned me off from that genre of music. Still hearing to 17 KHZ at 77 years young. I feel for you guys.
 
Years ago, I could align a TV horizontal oscillator without looking at the screen. Today, left ear is 7K and right is 14K. Both seem to be hard cutoffs. Classical and jazz are still ok but there is one song with a triangle above a full orchestra. This is on a record that was eventually copied to CD and high frequencies were boosted when making the copy, but the triangle is almost gone these days.
 
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