Pelican Hearing Test!
 

Hey, I’d like to do a group hearing test.

Download the frequency generator app of your choice to your smartphone. I use “f Generator” for iOS. Put on headphones or earbuds. Test your ability to hear the high frequencies - start around 6,000 Hz (6 kHz) and go up until you can’t hear the tone anymore.

Report back: 1) what is the highest frequency you can hear, 2) your age, 3) do you have a history of potentially hearing-damaging noise exposure (shooting, construction, rock musician, chopper pilot, etc)?

If you have a young person in your household (kid, etc), report the same result for him/her. If your spouse is game, report the same result for him/her. The more data points the better.

I’ll explain why I got interested in this, and my own results, after a few responses come in. I don’t want to color the reports by going into that too early.

+1

I can wave the iPhone speaker really close to my ear and pick up a sound at 14.5k and more like a sensation at 15k. Headphones at home so suspect a touch more if ears are free from external noise. Stay tuned.

App is very simple to operate.

8000. I wish I hadn't done this now, I had no idea it has gotten so bad.

At age 62 I have a nice big ol' case of Tinnitus, cicadas are constantly rubbing their legs together in my ears.

Years spent with headphones listening to raunchy music too loud while sitting at a computer monitor.

Lots of loud concerts, indoor and outdoor.
Lots of open-header spectator events, in the pits and in the stands.
Plenty of time spent on two-stroke dirt bikes with '70's era expansion chamber "technology".

11,000 using the phone speaker.

67. Rock and Roll. Dirt bikes. Hunting. Two broken eardrums.

Don't have wireless headphones for my XS so had to use phone speaker but in a quieter environment.

Right ear 13.5k. Left ear 10.5k. I can hear the noise from my right ear when it's right up against my left ear and I can't hear a thing.

Almost 65. No safety equipment ever. Accountant by trade but lots and lots of garage time where a few times my ears literally hurt for a while after using an air chisel.

What?

8000 for me. Slightly better in my left ear than my right. I'm a month shy of 71.
I worked in a foundry one summer during college. We make the cast iron molds they use to make earth mover tires. My job was to stand in the center and smooth out imperfections in the casting with a small jackhammer. It was like hammering on a bell - while you were inside it. They gave me no ear protection and no one thought about what it would do to my hearing.

No smart phone. But at 77..yeah, I will probably be getting hearing aids before long...

Newscasters trained to enunciate well, so I understand them. Most drama TV, can only understand some of he words...and young women with "upspeak" coming out their noses...can't understand them at all. Doesn't help that our TV has a cheap and small speaker.

This web site is a quick alternative to downloading an app:

https://www.szynalski.com/tone-generator/

I followed the instructions on the site for setting the volume around 1 kHz at a comfortable level. By up around 5 kHz I could barely hear anything - without increasing the volume.
I am essentially deaf in my right ear - but wear a hearing aid when out and about. 59 years young.

Thanks for this...me above 3500...zilch. 58 on the low end. Hmmm, I'd be wasting money to get high end stereo speakers..eh?

How timely,

I literally had a hearing test today and I was normal at all the frequencies. I was very surprised Idid as good as I did, because I had to wear my mask in the booth and all my labored breathing really made it hard to hear.

I wear hearing protection “religiously”, so no surprise that my hearing at 52 is pretty good, just wish my vision matched!

I was able to get to about 12.5k in the right ear. I think the left ear stops somewhere in the 11.5-12.0k range.

14228 hz

I downloaded a few apps and one was a full hearing test. I was surprised at my results.

Up to 500 hz, down a bit. I believe this is from heavy machinery work from my early work career (Gas Turbines, Steam Turbines, boilers, steam blows, air blows, etc.).

500-5000 very good in both ears. Above 7000, it appears my left ear is down a bit. test only went to 10,000 Hz.

I haven’t tried to test each ear separately. Using both, I can hear to 13 kHz - sort of - frankly, above 10 kHz my “hearing” is more of a “barely detecting”.

There is something going on with me at the moment - my ears seem to clear and unclear, it’s like I have the start of a minor cold - but that’s at best a minor factor. I’m 58, no history of loud concerts or power tools or unmuffled motors, always wore protection when shooting, I think I’m just aging :-)

My 21 and 25 y/o kids can hear to at least 16 kHz and that’s through speakers with no tweeters . . . I suspect they could hear higher on headphones. My wife, despite being a couple years older than I, can hear into the mid-teens easily.

Those are my data points. Keep ‘em coming, folks. There’s a couple reasons I want to get this group hearing test going.

Age: 43
Right: 14500
Left: 13800

Played guitar in heavy metal bands way too loud, shotguns (with hearing protection), 2 stroke dirtbikes.

Had a long history of ear infections and a tympanostomy as a kid. Chiropractic cured all ear issues.

No need for me to do this.

I lost the hearing in my right ear completely a year ago.

Luckly, my left ear works very well.

Protect your ears when using any kind of tool or machinery and do not play loud music!

I would think the results vary greatly depending on the quality of the earphones or speakers used in the test. Yes/no?

Yes. I started a test and was concerned that I couldn’t hear anything below 100 Hz but then it dawned on me that I was listening to speakers that probably couldn’t produce anything below 100 Hz.

My hearing is so bad, it's not funny. Can't hear high frequency sounds at all. Way to much rifle shooting and working on Jets in my youth.

I think it is best to do the test with headphones or earbuds, and focus on the high frequencies.

Absolutely
Right. I didn't even check the low end. I'll go back and do that.
agreed.

That’s helpful if you have such things in hand.

OK, I used the website above and my headphones which are a very nice set of headphones similar to the Bose QC35. I felt like I could hear down to about 18hz, but I could feel the pulses farther down the range. Then at 10hz, I stopped being able to tell anything was happening.

I can’t sing I ain’t pretty and my legs are thin

I can’t hear, my skin’s sagging and my eyes are dim.

Oh well….

Edit. Thread got me thinking, so I downloaded a hearing test (not just a generator)..

I used very good quality Sennheiser over the ear headphones, as opposed to the wireless buds I used previously. Same result, about 8000. Here's the party piece - I was informed I have the hearing of a 75 year old!

Good Friday, indeed!

Yep.

Pretty much anyone with a smart phone should have access to buds unless they've thrown them out or lost them. Doesn't pretty much every smart phone come with them?

So, I brought this topic up for two reasons. One is hi-fi / audiophilia, but I’ll start another thread about that. The other, that we may as well use this thread to talk about, is hearing loss and what to do about it.

I know people who have completely lost some or most of their hearing, sometimes very rapidly (I think it was due to disease or drug ototoxicity, though I’m not sure) and it is life-changing. Some get hearing aids or cochlear implants, and do the hard work to learn how to use them, and carry on okay. Others get withdrawn, socially remote, and stop interacting.

I am interested in learning if there are early warning signs of abnormal hearing loss, especially disease or drug related, and what you should do? And also about how you go about choosing and getting a hearing aid, with so many types both professionally fitted and off-the-shelf?

That’s abnormal hearing loss. Then there is normal hearing loss, which is what happens to most people as we age, especially in our unnaturally and extremely noisy environment.

(Before the Industrial Age, people weren’t exposed to a fraction of the noise that we are today. Go into the woods, it is quiet. Return to the city, it is loud even if you don’t ride motorcycles or play in a metal band. Our ears evolved to be sensitive enough for the quiet, not to withstand the loud.)

I’m interested in what is “normal” hearing loss, and what is abnormal like “you should get treatment!”. I found this not-very-authoritative-looking website that seems to suggest that most of the reports we’ve given here reflect pretty normal age-related loss with a little contribution from loud activities. https://decibelhearing.com/high-frequency-hearing-loss/

It claims:
- 8,000 Hz should be easily heard by everyone with normal hearing
- 12,000 Hz is hard for anyone over 50 years of age to hear
- 15,000 Hz is difficult for anyone over the age of 40 to hear
- 17,400 Hz is a frequency that only teenagers can hear. Most people over the age of 18 cannot hear this tone

What is normal hearing loss? What would - or should - make you consult a hearing doctor? Is there anything we can do now to improve our hearing or slow normal loss?

I've never bought a smart phone, so I have no idea. Inherited a couple, didn't get squat with them. No music on my phone, so not I problem I have sought to solve.

Used to have a pair of stereo headphones, no idea if I still have them after my last move, wouldn't connect to a computer or phone, anyway.

I went looking for drug ototoxicity and found this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6791930/

One of the meds I'm on has a fairly high risk of ototoxicity - although that's "high" relative to a very low overall rate, I think/hope.

I have one of those high-frequency animal repellents in my barn. I can't hear it and it doesn't work on mice or chipmunks so I forgot it was even there. My 14 year old grandson was helping me in the barn last summer and said, "What's that awful sound?" He poked around and found it. He had to unplug it in order to be in the building.

I’m 30 and I can hear up to about 15.5k. I go to a fair number of concerts, worked around heavy equipment in my youth, and shot a fair number of spoons. But I’ve always been pretty judicious about hearing protection save for a few concerts where I simply forgot to bring anything.

I do have a *constant* ringing sound in my ears, and I hate a quiet room because of it. I’ve figured out that it’s due to a nerve in my neck that get pinched and the sound goes away for a few days after a chiropractor visit, but it comes back along with the associated pain after about a week.

Guy I work with said exactly the same thing as you this morning. First time in my life I ever heard someone say I need noise all the time and you follow with the identical scenario.

I just sent him a text about your "relief" and he is going to look into it.

I am still trying to wrap my head around you being in those big metal tire molds with a pneumatic hammer. An echo chamber.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1617420543.jpg

Surprised 67 y/o, heavy artillery when I was 17-19


Worked as a mechanic,20-22y/o,


My fair share of Led Zepplin, Janis Joplin, Alice Cooper, , etc.

Iphone, plug in apple ear phones.

I'm thankful for this thread, because I was having a hard time choosing between 30.7 Magnaplaners and IRSV's but now I realize it might probably be money wasted.

(Thread hijack, this guy Paul will let anyone check out these IRS' during business hours, and I'd love to hear them, even though most of the subtleties would be lost on my tin ears.)

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On my phone speaker at full volume, I got to 11 kHz, but after 9, it all sounds the same.

62

Hope it works for him. Sometimes it takes a few adjustments to get it all straightened out.

I’m too active and tend to mess it all up by doing something I shouldn’t be. 🤣

Interesting. On my laptop speakers I can hear up to 11,500. At 12,000 I can sense a presence if I turn it on and off, but don't hear a tone.

Will try later with headphones.