source file: mills2.txt Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 18:33:18 -0800 Subject: Re: unheard frequencies From: Gary Morrison -------------------- Begin Original Message -------------------- "22kHz is the highest frequency that can be recorded on a CD, but I believe the threshold of human hearing to be significantly higher -- from memory, 60kHz, declining with age. As I only have digital synths, I can't actually verify this! " -------------------- End Original Message -------------------- That would be nice, but unfortunately that's probably wishful thinking. Our upper limit of hearing as children isn't much higher than 22KHz, and it declines depressingly with age. I couldn't find the usual set of curves for showing decline with age, but according to Psychology of Music by Carl Seashore (Dover), a 60-year-old typically experiences an 8dB loss at 1KHz, 24dB at 2KHz, 44dB at 4KHz, and 60dB at 8KHz. Considering that there's about 120dB between the threshold of hearing and theshold of pain, it's probably pretty safe to say that a 60-year-old is barely able to hear anything above about 12KHz. And based on this information, I doubt if even a 30-year-old is likely to hear much at 22KHz. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Mon, 17 Mar 1997 06:16 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA01036; Mon, 17 Mar 1997 06:16:36 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA01032 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) id VAA25370; Sun, 16 Mar 1997 21:15:06 -0800 Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 21:15:06 -0800 Message-Id: <199703162129_MC2-12B0-6FE0@compuserve.com> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu