Adventures In Audio

Can you hear this? I can't.

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@BillyHarvey:  Interesting to me I thought I could not hear it (As a guy in my mid 60's), but the final version sounded significantly "cleaner", so maybe there's still some iota of that last delicious octave rattling around in those biological sound sensors.

@Alec_Collins78:  Hmm. I could hear it's absence in the last playback.

@AudioMasterclass replies to @Alec_Collins78: This wouldn't surprise me. Our eyes can have negative afterimage so why not our ears?

@jamesandgames623:  16K is detectable in a PA system. Ironically you really don't HEAR it you PERCEIVE it BECAUSE psychology you know you increased that frequency with your EQ. At least that's my experience. 😊😊

@cdlong1377:  Another great video! This point is excellently demonstrated by the end of A Day In The Life on Sgt Pepper. The Beatles and George Martin put a high frequency tone right before the playout loop. I used to be able to hear it perfectly and now at 48, I cannot. My German Sheppard can hear it, however. And she gets up and runs from the room every time! In this video, I was able to hear some high frequency distortion, but I suppose it must be at a lower frequency, as someone else suggested. Incidentally, I learned over the last 6 years that I have a congenital hearing issue which is now a 50bB loss at 1kHZ. High and low frequencies are normal for someone at my age. I look at it as a sort of built-in eq!

@ralphmckenzie8802:  At 68 I have tinnitus in my left ear which creates a "hole" in my hearing at those frequencies. Interestingly it made my tinnitus substantially worse when the music was playing, suggesting that although I can't directly hear the frequency spike some part of my aural system can still detect this, perhaps through the jaw or skull bones?

@Nemura12:  I'm 43 years old. New to tur hobby, and since I child, I'm hyper sensitive for everything specifically sound. My sound equipment is The IEM project red by crinacle and a Dac. The sound was very clear to me and even painful to listen. In conclusion, music can be very subjective, so don't be sp hard to yourself and enjoy your music.

@c128stuff:  At age 55, I can still hear this, but only just.

@deejayiwan7:  Not everyone has a Rohde/Schwarz UPV analyzer at home....

@muppetpaster:  I go nuts near CRT's...The HV "squeal" from the flyback.....Nobody else in the room hears it....

@TheBRBvideos:  At 72 years old there's no way I'm going to hear the 15Kh tone directly despite having spent many years within the hi-fi and recording industries. What is perhaps interesting though is that I wasn't initially impressed by the choice of music, it seemed a bit heavy on the reverb each time it was played in the main body of the video. At the end though, when it was played without the signal, it sounded a lot cleaner with more natural reverb. Makes me wonder if the 'inaudible' tone wasn't still messing with my perception?

@AudioMasterclass replies to @TheBRBvideos: It's the same track both times, just a doodle exactly as it came out of the keyboard. So yes indeed, the tone might be messing with you.

@TheBRBvideos replies to @TheBRBvideos: Thinking about it, the presence of the artificial 15kHz tone and any harmonics at a relatively high amplitude compared to the music signal could also have caused distortion in my amp and the tweeters in my speakers. I'd have heard the effects even if I couldn't hear the cause, like a carrier wave set too low. Very interesting, thanks for an excellent demo.

@jerrybass:  you just ruined my day. I'm wondering now is my hardware not good enough or am i simply deaf.....

@ssmith10pn:  My ears ring around that same frequency, so I can't hear it.

@LeeBergerMediaProd:  definitely used to hear the fly back in my youth.

@FullFledged2010:  I could for sure hear the high-pitched tone of crt's when i was a kid. Now age 41 nope nothing 😅

@dercisi9429:  I was in my Phone, and i could hear IT clearly

@Smithy225:  My derriere is a tad bulky 😢

@TheEulerID:  The moment I saw the CRT, then I realised this was going to be about 15,625 Hz as I recall being able to hear it in my youth. No longer of course.

As far as music is concerned, then the highest note in a normal orchestra is C8 on a piano (about the highest not on a piccolo as well). That corresponds to 4,186 Hz. That's over two octaves down from the accepted range of human hearing. Of course, that's the fundamental, and there are higher harmonics, but for the most part very high frequencies don't play a huge part in most music.

@julianmarinoramos2302:  I can only hear it with my right ear, but I can clearly hear it. I'm 31

@LazerJass:  I'm going on 42 and got very annoyed but pleased with my loudspeakers. 
Oh, and I still have a Beovision Avant cathode ray tube television used as an oversized boombox as reference in the same room. Thank you for many hours of fun. Cheers

@johanjonsson3591:  A got q ringong tone 24/7 tinnitus from the early days of not care about earplugs when mixin local bands. I wonder what hertz that signal is...maybe i should find out

@Arcessitor:  yeah okay I can hear that and it does hurt

@sambolino44:  Definitely not a fan of the creepy droid women. Before I got to the part with the graphic analyzer, I tried it with my own analyzer app on my phone, and sure enough - there it was. Ever since I learned that my hearing stops at around 12k -14k I have been curious about this issue. At first I wondered if maybe it was just my speakers, but the analyzer disproves that notion. I guess if I want to get back into music production I'll have to run everything by my nephew. That spike was easy enough to see on an analyzer, but other problems may not be.

EDIT: Just checked my hearing again with a YouTube video of an audio sweep and I guess it's actually closer to 10k where my hearing stops.

@ajeffri:  I can't hear the tone itself, but the effects are pretty obvious. It almost sounded like something was out of phase.

@themathrock1607:  I was scarred because I couldnt hear it on my tv but I totally can on my studio monitors.

@BigStereoVR:  Keep your ears covered in everyday life. You'll have the ears of an engineer 20 years younger.

@jimawhitaker:  When young under 30 I could hear to 25 khz. Now at 62 only 15 khz. Still I feel blessed as most 60+ can't hear that far. Btw I am and have been legally blind since birth so hearing is very important to me...

@djlafg58:  I'm an 81 yo male who noticed about 10 years back that I was not hearing instruments such as a piccolo, or the high notes of violin or guitars, so I went and got hearing aides specifically for listening to music. What a difference they made to my enjoyment. Despite putting my aides in for the second run through of the tone I could not hear it, so my aides clearly don't get my hearing up to 15Khz. never mind, as you say there are still many octaves of sound to enjoy. On with the music!

@artysanmobile:  The modulator was never really audible from the television speaker so much as from the power supply and flyback xformer physically. It was loudest when no sound was present and, like all tones, terribly location sensitive, disappearing with a minute movement of the head.

My hearing is especially acute not as a test instrument, but rather as a musical instrument. I’m unconcerned about technical anomalies I know exist but are inaudible to me. What is really special about my hearing, special enough to warrant high pay in my work, is my knowledge of, and ability to represent, musical balance, the overtone sets that identify instruments. None of those functions require my hearing to be flat to some arbitrary frequency. I don’t know why any music lover would have trouble understanding this.

@ShoVon:  That's the signature noise of Taylor Swift albums.

@AudioMasterclass replies to @ShoVon: You are not unamusing.

@user-dp1dv8kc3e:  Middle aged audiophile here, oh yeah, the cat and I heard it alright. I imagine its my expensive cables. Will test on my older friends

@powermod6772:  Ouch! I can hear it very clearly. This triggered my tinnitus :(

@siggidori:  Well I felt better when it stopped! :D

@spectrelayer:  Great video. I can still hear amazing highs - but they are attenuated. HOWEVER, my spectrum analyzer doesn't miss a thing. And I don't need to tell you about the number of commercial releases that contain a high-frequency notch that some engineer didn't filter out. The audio in my music library doesn't even need a 19 kHz pilot. Imagine that. And yet ... some tracks...

@robfriedrich2822:  The audio compression could also filter it out as not necessary.

@johnbravo7542:  It is an unfair test,because you just think it's the written music

@JP-dm6gi:  This is a video you should not share with a friend with schizophrenia.

Luckily I have no friends at all.

@brandnewyou5254:  Damd...why such a compressed and tight sound on your vocal.you can do better.....why not........obs and a perfect setup takes a lot of work huh?

@brandnewyou5254:  I hate to copy your style......but I'm gonna copy your style.the lady's and the way you react with them is sooo[o cool

@brandnewyou5254:  There digital noise in anything g on this phone..love your vids

@brandnewyou5254:  This is a cheap phone

@brandnewyou5254:  You didn't tell me what I'm supposed to hear

@brandnewyou5254:  I got my headphones plugged into phone

@brandnewyou5254:  Digital noise?

@shingdaz:  Mastering is soundstage structure, then freq contrast etc.eq, addding compressor to an entire track in the mastering process, crushes the hugh freq’s with increased amplitude etc trying to make them sound more aggressive, it can be percieved as louder, at the cost of smearing out of focus the 15,000 20,000khz soundstage etc. limiters when used properly if required provide a contrast to the upper freques in the signal…these need to be properly structred or they will float around like balloons, mishaping the soundstage.

@Mark-tp2mz:  Thank for you well reasoned and explained videos, i am pleased to manage to avoid the Audiophile trap. Could you please do a video on Dolby Atmos? Is it really ad good as it is marketed to be? Is it worth it?Mark

@Mark-tp2mz replies to @Mark-tp2mz: I thank my luck stars I can hear it loud and clear , very pleased as just turned 55 , i guess the benefits of not attending too many rock concerts or using headphones much.

@fins59:  Those two lovely ladies should swap T shirts.

@Synthematix:  Ultrasonic frequencies are nothing but annoying, at the age of 50 i can still hear a 16KHz sinewave in audacity yet i still have tinnitus (hell of a lot of people have this) but these frequencies have no place in music, i mean name a single instrument that plays at any meaningful volume over 16KHz, i mean hi-hats top out at 16Khz, its a blessing as you get older that these annoyances go away forever.

@1337wafflezz:  I heard it BARELY at the end

@PhilipBallGarry:  I'm an old guy and used to repair TV's for a living. I could honestly hear TV line frequency and instinctively know a TV set was on the moment I walked into a room. These days at a smidge under 60 and with post- Covid tinnitus in both ears I can't. Or rather wouldn't if there were any CRT TV's left.
So, no I'm afraid I didn't hear the artifact on the sample - even with good headphones on.
The subject of colour purity errors caused by a TV being moved whist switched on or from a faulty degaussing circuit is probably better left for another time 😆

@ray_notes8170:  I could hear it initially, but I didn't hear it when you played it with the spectrograph

@clytemnestra:  I mouthed "oh no" almost immediately - not painful but certainly really unpleasant

@powernattoh:  Many thanks for excellent video and exposé of infrasound phenomena, but your assistant Betty needs to blink more... 🤣

@fernandofonseca3354:  40 years ago I could hear 19 kHz... these days I consider myself lucky to tap the window at 8 kHz! 😂

@ericquasney8832:  Heard over crappy phone. Throw out of phase. Now how to hire good help. 🙈

@LucienBill:  Just for fun I sometimes use a sine waves generator to checkymy hearing. I used to be annoyed by CRT monitors, or even aby standing close to the back of a modern TV while managing cables.

Now I have a threshold : above 15.5 kHz I can't hear anything... And it's a blessing : I never liked high trebles 😂

But yeah, when I produce stuff I use visual aids to make sure I get rid of any signal that I can't hear (either because of my hearing or my setup). My reasoning is: if I can't hear it I can't control it, but it can still ruin the mix if I leave it

@henrikpetersson3463:  I can't hear it in the way I used to as a kid (I'm 44 now) but I can still hear it. I experience it as more of a feeling, a high frequency buzzing in my head. Not as I remember hearing it when I was younger.

@tsunamimae1965:  There is a beautiful track - Islands by King Crimson. When the final, beautiful trumpet solo kicks in, same high freq noise is present and ruins whole track. I guess everybody involved with mix and mastering were deaf to 16kHz and higher freq and just... Didn't hear it.

@mkpleco:  I have tinnitus sooo. Do I hear it, or do I hear it all the time? 🙃

@QuinnKallisti:  I can certainly hear it, 31 years old, using ribbon tweeters.

@BerndSchmidt27:  Been curious because of the old TV in the teaser picture if this video was about the flyback frequency, i clicked it and indeed it is :-) Hope this comment will not get too long - there are some anecdotes I'd like to share. TL;DR: I can't hear it.

Of course I was annoyed by the flyback tone of the TV-CRTs at least up to my late-30s. But also the 19 kHz pilot tone in stereo FM broadcasts bothered me a lot - I don't know when I finally lost the capability of heraring it because I eventually had an FM tuner which filtered out the 19 kHz far better than my old one did - must have been around 30.

I knew a record studio owner from a choir where we both sang, who ordered an IR remote control from Sony for my first CD player, which came without one, but I found out, that it had an IR Receiver built in. To fetch it, I visited him in the studio where he proudly showed me (1988) his new digital tape machine. The control for the huge tape workstation was a small CRT monitor with an awfully loud flyback sound. I asked him (who was in the mid-40s at that time) if he wasn't bothered - especially as a sound engineer - being surrounded with this noise - and the answer was "I don't hear that"... (!)

When I was 35 my 10-year older colleague mentioned that it was "one of the big advantages of age" for him, that the CRT "tone" is no more an issue to him - and he was right: About 10 years later there was a TV report of the "Mosquito" teenager repelling audio system, which I watched together with my son. He asked me "don't you hear this?" - and indeed: I did not.

Meanwhile I'm 63 and my tinnitus (which accompanies me half my life) is a mixture of high frequencies, which "kindly" remind me of the tones I'm not able to hear anymore... fortunately I'm compleatly comfortable with it.

@davidlai1996:  I remember hearing this high frequency tone on a CRT television back in the day, about 20 years ago when our family still owned one!!! And, now close to 30, I can still hear this tone. I hope I can still hear it when I'm 50!!!

@glenngundlach9907 replies to @davidlai1996: Don't hold your breath. It just happens. I haven't heard it since my mid 30s. I worked 45 years in broadcast TV so I was very aware. I can't say I miss it though.

@davidlai1996 replies to @davidlai1996: @@glenngundlach9907 Well, regarding that noise, I can say that I don't miss it either. :) But I also know that one day I will have natural hearing loss, so I'm trying my best to protect my ears -- speakers more and headphones less, and try not to expose them to loud noise, ETC. One of my piano professors recommended active noise-canceling headphones. I haven't used them, but they sound like an interesting thing. He uses a pair all the time when he's traveling or commuting.

@bmb224:  Hmm, interesting. I can hear it extremely clearly with my Q45 headphones, but when I listen on my IEMs through an Earmen Eagle dac, the sound disapears

@chuckmaddison2924:  I'm thinking you might not be able to hear the main frequency but when it mixes with something else you might hear the beat frequency.

@zed5891:  I hear it and it's painful on a mid range receiver and KEF LS50.
I can't hear, or it's not irritating, on a professional DAC feeding into Focal Solo6 be studio monitors.

@bgravato:  I'm always a bit skeptic on this things... not doubting David no... but I had doubts youtube video would keep those frequencies in (because as far as I'm aware they use lossy codecs for audio).

My 44 years old ears obviously couldn't hear the noise (or else I wouldn't have any doubts). So I connected my large diaphragm mic through my Motu M2 audio interface and hit play on this video while recording... I recorded both an excerpt in the beginning (with the noise) and another at the end of the video (when the song is played without the noise). Spectral analysis proved that not only youtube audio codecs preserve 15kHz tone, but also that my cheap speakers can play it and my cheap mic can "hear" it...

In fact I did a bit of an experiment generating some tones in Audacity and actually both speakers and mic are capable of quite a bit over 20kHz (I stopped experimenting at 22kHz). My ears on the other end can't reach that anymore... I could still (quite noticeably) hear 13kHz, or even 14kHz (very very faint though), but nothing at 15kHz and above... zilch, zero, nada. I was a bit surprised that I can still go up to 14kHz (barely), though a quick online search revealed that's I'm actually about on the average for my age.

Edit: did the test with my companion who's 8 years younger and she can still hear up to 15kHz (and her reaction when I played 15kHz tone was something like "stop that! that's annoying! what? can't you hear that?"). Her limit seems to be close to 15.5kHz, so I guess that explains why she couldn't hear it on the video either.

@PitchWheel:  I clearly remember that when I was a child I could spot when the Tv was turned on by a persistent very high pitched frequency. Now, at 55, I cannot hear anything strange here :-(

@oakdaddy:  Philo T. Farnsworth invented the first complete electronic television system.

@QOTSAPT:  It is not a nice sound. you are not missing anything.

@dangerzone007:  Just use a notch filter that frequency. Easy

@davidfromamerica1871:  I hear nothing but the music.

@RichSDet:  Lucky I have ringing all the time…🙄

@keithchongyuctss5229:  It felt like my ear was floating when the sound played

@Kami84:  I'm 39 & can hear it. It kept ringing for a little while even after the music stopped though which is probably for some neurological reason.

@GabrielCSousa:  Yeah, you should be banned from the audio community.
Jokes aside, i'm happy you're able to enjoy music as much as i do in my 23th year of existence. One thing is to worry about the details and other is to appreciate the details you do hear. Most of the time it's a blurry line but one that we should be able to walk freely from side to side. Thank you for the video

@r-ratedstudios3847:  mf moves like his ai hoe xD

@Balikon:  Interesting experiment. I am not sure, if I really heard the high frequency or I only imagined hearing it. But I felt very uncomfortable when I listened to the music.

@JaKeAFC09:  I well remember this from the CRT TVs when i was a kid, i could tell if it was on two rooms apart... Every audio engineer should include steep low cut and high cut filters at least on the master track. Those HF signals are still around us, even in professional recording environment with wide range condenser microphones when dealing with cymbals and acoustic guitars. Some synths and electronics equipment could introduce even higher frequency noises. The major point is that both sub (<40) and highs (>16k) can be inaudible but still eating up a lot of space in the physical vibration of the speaker, or vinyl groove, or anyway the headroom of any processing device up to the point of clipping, self oscillating or anyway disrupting the good part of the signal. In this case one cannot just use his ears, but additional equipment such as oscilloscope and spectrum analyzers are fundamental. Indeed as far as i know most audio equipment is intentionally designed to have in 20-20,000 Hz range, even master tape machines and Neumann cutting lathes, i'd say it's an industry standard to cut part of the signal that may even cause physical damage to equipment, and this could be something audiophiles tend to forget when such advertised products are claiming frequency response from 10-100,000 Hz where the source signal does not contains such ends in first place. Anything over 15K is not audible by most audience, and even for thiose who can still hear it is not much pleasing. I tried isolating the 14k-16k range using FIR filters, and listen to that alone, it's like the top end of a keyholder dropping on the floor or a chalk scraping on a blackboard. In analog media such frequencies are naturally attenuated in the signal path, digital domain has much shorter path is and well able to keep them as modern speakers are able to reproduce, no wonder (at least early) digital listening experience was deemed harsh/cold/tinny.

@nb-dm7gm:  My left ear was sealed shut with wax for a year, and I about a month ago I had an appointment to get the wax removed, left ear could hear the tone, where as with the right, nothing. I am 28

@margeneroso3101:  Can’t either but I have very old ears! Hearing is a technical matter notwithstanding there are medical issues as well. The WHO classifies “normal hearing” at between “0 - 25dB” pressure levels. Adults with healthy ears are closer to 15-17 kHz … human infants can hear higher than 20 kHz … cymbal freq range is bet 300-600 Hz but add the high harmonics can reach as high as 20 kHz … bottom line … at my age I’m thankful for my hearing! Though I can’t hear 15 kHz … I can still hear the subtle cymbal playing 9ft behind the piano … the sound of the piccolo on the right side in front of the brass … I continue to enjoy what my ears allow me to enjoy! ❤ Thank God for great musiK! 🙏🙏🙏

@andreasboe4509:  Audio quality isn't always about the enjoyment, but also about unconscious effects of your brain getting fatigued by having to filter out what should have been filtered out by a sound technician. I've edited recorded lectures for ten years and I always removed frequencies over 11kHz. It made for less noise and better MP3 compression and comprehensibility.

@cainabel2553:  Quite unpleasant, nauseating, I guess over the time it would be painful.

@trleith:  I could hear flyback transformers when I was a kid -- if you heard it you knew the high-voltage section of your TV was working at least a little. More to the point, if you couldn't hear it, start your troubleshooting there.

So I generated 30 seconds of 15,600Hz sine wave at full amplitude with Audacity, and I am shocked to learn that I can at my advanced age still hear this frequency.

But I don't think I'd ever have perceived it in a music recording, except perhaps during a silence. Perhaps, if the noise floor was really, really good. There's just too much masking going on otherwise.

I am skeptical of most "audiophile" claims, and positively scornful of some. Directional interconnect cables and speaker wires come immediately to mind. Yes, that humbug was a thing.

@johnmerriman274:  Loved the music and didn't hear the high frequency. Great video...keep them coming. My wife walked by as I was watching/listening and said it reminded her of a Monty Python skit.

@garysmith8455:  May I add? As soon as the thumbnail popped up with the title of this video and seeing that old TV, I KNEW it was going to be about the flyback transformer!!! I remember as a kid, going to appliance dealers with many TVs on in the demo room and hearing a HUGE chorus of high frequencies!

Over the years, it seemed to disappear and no longer heard it. I am 70, and still hear to around 10k. Have always protected my ears from loud noises in factories I worked in, AND many years as a musician in LIVE rock bands.

In our pipe organ firm, I still have the best hearing out of my company co-workers, as we regularly tune pipes to 8K. On organ actually goes a full octave above that to 16K, but I must admit, I no long here the top 8 pipes and only here the wind going through them.......🙂

@johndowlingjr.:  yep I could hear it. Reminds me of the old CRT TV's. God, I hated those things because of that ringing!

@AudioMasterclass replies to @johndowlingjr.: The CRT was a wonderful thing in its time. Fortunately we now have better. DM

@dirtykraut:  High Peeling uncomfotable noise, painful and its coming out if my earbuds. Sounds like cheap poweradapter.

@ivalkov:  Oh how I hated this sound 50 years ago:) Now i can't hear it even on Sennheiser.... But I still love my music, and everyday discover something new!!!

@theundertaker5963:  I am beginning to love the banter coming from those two AI assistant ladies 😂, the blond is gunning for you my mate, treat her better or soon she will take over!

P.S.

I am no longr young, nor am K considered old but I recon myself somewhat of an audiophile and a music head. i was also around when the CRT TVs were a thing as we had several of them around in our house and in other relatives houses. I am very glad to report that my hearing is good enough to have picked up on the frequency from the get go on my pair of Beoplay EX earbuds. Though I have to admit they are amazing earbuds and make everything sound more accurate and crispy, but thay being said I specifically remembered the frequency fron the days I was a kid and I could pick it up from the Tube TVs of the older days, especially before they warmed up and they atarted showing the picture.

@NotSo-bp9op:  dirt cheap Dell A215 computer speakers do reproduce this annoying frequency. Had you chosen a sub-bass frequency I would have missed it for sure, since these are pretty much only tweeters. My Logitech G432 gaming headset does not reproduce 15 kHz despite claimed upper range of 20 kHz, couldn't hear it at all through these, so perhaps sufficient reason to upgrade to better headphones. Thanks for that!

@Hi---There:  I find out, when I generate a sine in audio program, then +/- can hear up to 15+K.
When I hear it through Youtube, it cut from +/-13K, doesn't matters which equipment You use.

@AudioMasterclass replies to @Hi---There: Coincidentally I uploaded a simple video today with sine waves from 13 kHz to 20 kHz, just as a personal test. I played it back through a spectrograph and they all came through. Not perfectly cleanly but they were there. I suspect that YouTube will give a user audio suited to their device and the quality of their internet connection so some users will experience a limited high-frequency response. DM

@Hi---There replies to @Hi---There: @@AudioMasterclass Possibly you’re right. I’ll check it.

@mastrtonberry2:  Yes and I could hear it in any room in the house back in the day

@ac81017:  Nope, i couldn't hear that as an audiophile aged 47. I would like to know if there are any physical instruments that play higher than say 10khz?? I did a frequency sweep and found that my hearing stops at around 13.khz and i can't think of any instruments apart from maybe a synth than would play that high? Please correct me if i'm wrong. I'm think 5% of audiophile who enjoy both playing and spend more than £1000 on an intterconnect. Great video 🙂

@nachot6592:  This one is actually a pretty low frencuency (for an annoying high frequency pitch, that is). I'm 34 and I find it annoying as hell; it is not even hard to notice; it is in your face. The issue with this kinds of tests on youtube is that the Opus profile YouTube uses (even on popular) videos cuts of way before 20 kHz, so if you take these "hearing tests" and they go beyond 16 or 18 kHz, chances are the sounds are not even there to begin with since Opus will remove them during compression.

@AudioMasterclass replies to @nachot6592: Thank you for your comment. My guess is that YouTube supplies different video/audio according to the user's device and quality of internet connection. Therefore some viewers will indeed not hear anything above 16 kHz or perhaps even less. I've just made a quick test with tones from 13 kHz to 20 kHz and with the aid of a spectrograph I can see that they are all coming through for me. You can hear this at https://youtu.be/vVWAHepuCNs but please turn down your volume. At present, this video isn't searchable but I may make a longer and more detailed video on the topic. DM

@Cyhawkx:  Having CRTs around for most of my life, this test was cheating. I naturally tune it out unless I explicitly listen for it :P

@johnmarchington3146:  I'm well into my 80s now and definitely can't hear that 15,625 Hz tone. Likewise, when I attend concerts, I am unable to hear the triangle if it is involved in a work on the programme. Oh, to be 20 again!

@rolfviehmann6240:  I think the solution to the problem presented is very simple:

You asked the question about whether a young, but inexperienced sound engineer could be better than an expert with decades of knowledge but degraded hearing abilities.

I think it's really simple: The experienced, but older sound engineers can and should do their job as well as possible, but before the recording is released, it could be checked by a few young people with ears that are known to be very good and very sensitive, and if these young people can hear some high frequency noise that should not be present, this noise can probably be filtered out with digital means.

For example, if the noise has a known frequency (for example 15.625 kHz (PAL) or 15.734 kHz (NTSC)), it should be possible to have a bandpass filter that filters out this frequency but leaves the rest of the recording intact, so after filtering, it can be released and everyone is happy.

These young people probably don't even have to be sound engineers, they just have to have good hearing and be able to differentiate between a good recording without any unwanted noise and a recording that contains unwanted noise. To differentiate between the two can probably be taught quickly, so it could be easy money for young people for a few years, before their ears get too old.

So classic teamwork!

@AudioMasterclass replies to @rolfviehmann6240: You're exactly right. If budget permits of course. DM

@Joss0051:  Strangely I can hardly hear it, but it feels like pressure building up behind the music making it a bit uncomfortable. It could be imagination but the music without the hum feels cleaner and more spacious. Not that I have fantastic hearing, I can't hear mosquitos as easily as once, the bite marks prove that. Very interesting and all the best regards Joseph

@johnbull5394 replies to @Joss0051: I probably could have heard it, but I am on my laptop so I didn't. My experience was similar to yours.

@TheBRBvideos replies to @Joss0051: Also my impression even though I can't hear 15Kh 'directly'

@robertfargher5154:  Well, I can't hear it. No surprise as I had my hearing tested in 2013 and am down 60 dB at 7 kHz and have tinnitus. But even though my hearing is ... suboptimal, I love music just as much as I ever did. So no expensive new hi-fi equipment for me if I can't hear any improvement. I bought my JBL L36 loudspeakers new in 1977 and they sound as good to me as they ever did. So I have a stereo system better than any audiophiles, i.e. one that's good enough. :-)

@szeredaiakos:  One of those pause & comment videos.
There is some weird high frequency noise, sounds like aliasing artefacts .. or dithering .. can't really tell. It definitely has it's body beyond my hearing range. There is a slight chance that what i am picking up are only ghost fundamentals and the actual problem is beyond 15kHz.

Edit: lol... I completely missed this one. That noise from old CRT is something i do remember from childhood. It is nothing like aliasing or dither.

@KN510:  Beautiful melody. Am I listening for the highlighted sound (like a double C on a trumpet)? I can hear that from the beginning. I was expecting to hear high pitched static in the background.

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Monday June 26, 2023

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David Mellor

David Mellor

David Mellor is CEO and Course Director of Audio Masterclass. David has designed courses in audio education and training since 1986 and is the publisher and principal writer of Adventures In Audio.

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