are there any sounds, instruments, etc, that only are audible above 7000 hz, and i can't hear them ?

 

Wow.....well, me personally, having mixed many loud rock bands in a 500-600 person club and only being about 10 feet from the PA stack, know I've lost some hearing, though I've not done the test like you mentioned in Cubase. I also know I've lost some hearing in my right ear due to playing stage left, next to the drummer for oh 20 years or so.

I know we are both missing something when it comes to high resolution audio.

Now, let's think about how most people listen, or get their media, these days anyway. The MP3....worst thing to happen to music ever.....in my opinion. However, my point being, at some point, all the high frequency information is just dumped. Look at any MP3 through a spectrum analyzer and you will see it immediately. Some really bad ones, you will see it disappear at 5K. People have come to expect this as the norm (not my extreme case). That's just the part to try and make you feel better about 'missing out'

As far as the upper range, and adding air, etc. Hell yes, it makes an enormous difference, and it can be very easily overused too.

I saw something on TV the other day that has me wondering about your specific case. There was a girl that didn't hear at all, her whole life due to not enough of the small hairs inside her ear canal. I believe, although not completely sure, that this is what gets damaged from 'hearing loss'. Anyway, on the show, she got a cochlear implant and after the procedure was able to hear normally again.

They didn't go in to specifics as far as frequency range, but, I wonder if this sort of thing is available to people like us that would like to be able to hear a broader spectrum. It certainly got me thinking about it, and after reading your post, I felt I had to comment, even as my first post ;)

This sort of thing has been on my mind for quite a few years now....ever since I notice myself turning my left ear towards a person in order to hear them speak!

 

now, go make that test, and try to beat my record, that is 6500 hertz

 

start using a sillyscope so at least you can see the frequency range if not hearing it. As you get older you do lose the ability to hear very high freqs. You could of course start making some drum and bass

 

You could have an implant at some point in the future and hear up to 40KHz and eventually everyone will have it (if things go the way they seem to be going). Problem solved.

An asteroid will hit earth in 2880 anyway and it won't matter anymore. There could be plasma weapons that can turn it into dust by then though, who knows?

No, I'm not jumping to conclusions.

In a more serious tone, as far as releasing tracks is concerned, that's what mixing/mastering engineers are for. The "other pair or ears". If need be, you can always pay someone to do it for you. And if there's a procedure that can repair/enhance your hearing, then consider it. Why not? If it's going to improve your everyday life...

(I just did a generator test and I can hear up to about 22k [~21,8-21,9]. And I believe I may have damaged it a bit since I occasionally listen at high volumes/loud tracks, lel.)

Here I can hear it at 20000:
http://onlinetonegenerator.com/

With Studio One Tone Generator I could still at about 22k... Am I doing something wrong?

 

ok, let's go.
*wikipedia...drum and bass..*

 

for those who can go up to 17-18K..lucky guys.

 

It starts to sound a bit radio/phone-like. A bit tinny and dull. Some presence/"bite" is lost. It's like you hear from a distance or from the next room with a kinda thick wall in-between. (Well, duh, highs are lost with distance/air) The reverb sounds duller and boomier, the hats are heard like (s)ticks (kinda like not hearing the attack - depends on the hat). Can you live without it? Sure, I guess.

But if you're a mixing engineer, you'd have problems...

 

thanks for the test. and your link is amazing, already bookmarked.

 

Above 5/6K, apart from some percussions (e.g, triangle, jingle, tamb, etc) & cymbals/drums, it's mostly just instrument harmonics. Like, you're missing out on the high-end, usually not whole instruments.

I know a dude that got his hearing damaged by loud sounds when he was a teen or so. He can still hear, but only high frequencies (I'm not sure of specifics). He still enjoys music, though.

 

umm.. this is a bit wierd, I can't get much above 13khz in that test yet when mixing and need to add a bit of a little sizzle at 15Khz its not a problem. Implants you say..!

 

We gradually lose hearing in the high frequency part of the spectrum as we age too so don't discount that.

 

I just signed up to the forum to post after reading this....

I'm a full time recording and mix engineer so I pretty much spend 75% of my life contemplating frequencies through a graphic EQ... a large portion of my work is vocal engineering.

The range of the human ear, strictly speaking, is 20hz - 20,000hz (20khz) - I would say that i can "hear" sound above 20khz, sometimes upto 30khz in the right circumstances but that's generally only because there is other harmonic content to give those frequencies reference.

I'm no expert when it comes to hearing in a medical sense, but if your hearing was only effective to 7khz I would imagine you would have severe difficulties with your hearing - you would effectively be missing the ability to hear most of the sibilant speech frequencies, and everything in general would sound muted and dull. In a musical context, i imagine things would sound very strange - especially drums and vocals.

I remember doing a similar test when I was at university, during a sound synthesis lecture the professor used a tone generator to create a pure sine wave and progressively increased it's frequency through the range of hearing... I honestly couldn't hear a thing after 14khz, but I can't imagine a scenario where anything remotely like that would make people uncomfortable or feel pain to the point of wanting to lie on the floor either so I'm slightly confused by your description of that experience (although that may be due to poor reading habits and the healthy amount of grouse i have in me right now lol)

So that I don't end up rambling and embarrassing myself i'll get to my point now haha - unless you're having major issues with your hearing in general life (which really should have been picked up before it it was that severe) then I suspect whilst you may not have perfect hearing, you may just have ‘blind spots’ in your hearing range… do you ever suffer from tinnitus/ringing or similar?

 

I tried the spectrum thing in Studio One, through just my studio monitors. I could hear up to 17.8K in my left ear, right ear, no way. I know it went up higher (speaker wise) since the cats went crazy as I tried to hear it...Was pretty fun sweeping it down to 20 also, and I couldn't believe I heard that one.

 

with vocals you would lose a lot out on intelligibility probably up to the point where you would have to kindly ask to repeat last thing said everytime lol...also your writing, despite spelling check, seems perfectly normal...you would make more errors since pronunciation differs more often from the written form than it follows phonetically...if you can correctly pronounce "Sennheiser" and the local vocal booth hero doesn't correct you (the fuckin' nerve lol) your'e good to go... *yes*

 

i can only hear up to 12khz
to much loud music in my live

 

Beethoven became completely deaf at 49 but he continued to write music and compose even in an era where it didn't exist any kind of technological aid like today. The result of such commitment is his op.125, the Ninth Symphony, which is rightfully the European Union anthem. After the first performance, at the end of the Symphony, Beethoven was turned to face the audience: he received five ovations, two more than the emperor and the police stepped in to silence the crowd.
Ergo it is possible to pursue a career in music even in such adverse conditions! As Horowitz put it: "You must have will"!

 

I am good to go until about 13.5k which I guess is about right for my 55 year ear(s).

 

the human race took hundreds thousands years to evolve to the point as we are today.20-20000. and thanks to the marvelous mp3 invention, where most of the high frequencies disappear, specially at 128kb bitrates or lower, with the billions people listening to these sounds 5 hours a day, if nothing is done, in a couple of generations, kids and then young people(as they grow up), maybe their brain won't treat the high frequencies anymore. if no sound sources go up to 10k or higher, why should the brain and ear use resources treating useless frequencies ?

what's next ? mp3v2, with a bandwidth of 100hz -- 5000hz ?

 

Sounds very much like something I have experienced. I asked my doctor about it & he pulled a large hard chunk of ear wax from the offending ear. Turns out that I had unknowingly pushed the wax deeper into my ear by using ear swabs to clean my ears before using earbud-type headphones. Worth checking.

...

Catalyst is correct.

I am 61 years old. While a teen & young man I was required to be near a lot of very loud explosive-type noise that definitely robbed me of some highs. The VA [Veteran's Administration] gave me a hearing aid for my left ear only when I was about 22. That seemed to bring things into a better semblance of balance but did not return all that I had lost. I was playing hard rock & boogie-type blues then so I did not care too much. I would just take it out of my ear while performing.

In my middle years my hearing gradually slipped away from me, in spite of my taking much greater care of my ears. Now I have loss in both ears [4,900Hz left - 7,700Hz right]. I need human feedback when playing live because I have a tendency to set my guitars & amps somewhat brighter than I need to. Onstage I could go with in-ear monitors but I prefer floor monitors & the "designed for guitar players ear plugs". Habit, maybe? I think though, that in-ear monitors would most likely contribute to additional hearing loss.

DAW work can be quite frustrating.

What really curdles my milk is the tinnitus. It has reached a point of roaring in my ears. Mine is around 7,200Hz. Right there in the sibilance range. There is no way I can ignore it & no way to disguise it. I've thought maybe hypnosis might help me ignore it but I am poor & have not gotten around to investigating that avenue.

One thing I have learned is various medications & other fun substances sometimes profoundly affect the tinnitus. Some [few] decrease my awareness of it. Most seem to increase it. My list of "what I will do vs what I won't do" has shrunk considerably in these past years, at least when music is involved.

Bottom line for me is accepting the changes. That means not hesitating when I need to ask for help or opinion. An O-scope & graphic EQ helps but not as much as someone else's ears. I truly don't think I give up any of my "precious creativity" when I enlist friends to help. I look at it as critique. I will admit it took me many wasted years to learn that. Ah pride...