# Test your hearing - but BE CAREFUL



## Ciel_Rouge (May 16, 2008)

I AM NOT LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGE CAUSED BY THE USE OF THIS ONLINE TEST. THIS POST IS INTENDED AS A WAY TO PROVIDE A SCIENTIFIC TOOL DEVELOPED BY A UNIVERSITY IN AUSTRALIA THAT WILL ALLOW FELLOW LISTENERS TO TEST THEIR HEARING. DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO USE THE TOOL ARE PROVIDED AT THE WEBSITE BELOW THE ACTUAL APPLICATION.

There, now that I have warned you and placed a disclaimer, let's get to the good part: all members on this forum can use a free tool that allows one to test and compare your hearing. You will see a set of bars for each frequency, the top of each bar is the loudest and IS LIKELY TO DAMAGE your hearing or equipment. So, start at the MIDDLE of each bar and SLOWLY work your way upwards or downwards.

1. DO NOT use your favourite listening equipment for this test
2. DO NOT start at the top of the chart - start in the MIDDLE and SLOWLY work your way upwards or downwards
3. I suppose we will all appreciate if you post the resulting diagram on this forum (I will refrain from posting mine straight away to avoid any bias)

After you share your diagrams I will share mine. It is NOT a competition - it is a way to give us all some information on the condition of our hearing and to compare the results with each other. Have fun.

Here is the link:

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/hearing.html

You will find other useful tools and other online tests of this kind all over the internet. Let's measure our hearing.


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## Lang (Sep 30, 2008)

Well, my hearing has deteriorated significantly with age. I find that now it is difficult for me to get the balance correct on recordings because of the insensitivity to the upper range. I also suffer from tinnitus, which doesn't help either. Anyway, here is my curve (I couldn't find any way of rendering this more satisfactorily):-

-15 -21 -27 -30 -33 -36 -39 -39 -45 -48 -48 -48 -48 -48 -42 -36 -33 -15 0


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Like Lang's, my hearing isn't what it was.

However, be careful how you interpret the results of this test - the headphones you use affect the result very substantially:

I don't have any really good headphones. However, this first chart is what I got using a pair of cheap JVC HA-CD71Fs - they came bundled with a portable CD player some years ago. Workmanlike but no more:










And then I repeated the test with a better quality set (AKG K141s):










As you see, the charts are probably telling me more about the headphones than my hearing. That sharp dip around 2KHz in the first curve probably has everything to do with the JVCs and not much to do with me.

*Afterthought:* The 'dip' in the curve for the JVCs at 2kHz arises of course from a _peak_ in their sensitivity - presumably deliberately engineered to make them sound 'bright' and 'clear'.


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## Ciel_Rouge (May 16, 2008)

Thank you for your answers, I always wanted to compare my results with someone else's, but as you probably suspect the awareness of hearing protection or equipment quality is rather low among the "general public". Even though this test is indeed very relative and it does "test" your equipment as well (don't be tempted to use your favurite equipment though) I still find it rather useful in getting a general idea about our hearing and what each frequency sounds like - I suppose apart from the famous 1 kHz it is not easy to identify them even though we hear them every day. By the way, we are given the 20 Hz - 20000 kHz specs on most good earbuds but do not fully realise that 20 Hz or 20000 Hz is most often rather inaudible for most people.

As for tinnitus, I'll let you know when I find a good test like this - many people may have only slight tinnitus and it can be detected in special conditions.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Will you show us yours, CR? (This could become a headphone comparison test!)


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## Ciel_Rouge (May 16, 2008)

Sure, here it goes:










I did it with cheap Philips SHE 1350 earbuds (16 Hz - 20 kHz, 100 db, 16 Ohm, 50 mW). First I found a level where 1 kHz is comfortably recognizable - below that, I noticed it becomes diluted quickly (though still retains some of its "character"), then only the presence of "a sound" is noticed in contrast to reference "silence" and then no change is perceived when the sound is "played". Since these are equal loudness contours, I tried to find the same "comfortable" spot for other frequencies and then when played from left to right, it should sound equally loud throughout the whole range.

Of course, this is not an objective test but rather an outcome of a complex combination of hearing/hardware/loudness setting/ambient noise. Still, we can get a "general idea" - like seeing that the curve rises more steeply in the right half of the diagram. The extreme bass and extreme treble bars are probably not easily reproduced by most hardware configurations. However, if we would like to compare detection thresholds, each of us could for example try to tell which panel on the 1 kHz bar corresponds to a "detection" of sound (not the initital or final "clicks" that you get from the membranes, just a real sound that is audible in the middle of the short playback). As I mentioned before, these bursts at sometimes exotic frequencies can cause some possible damage to the equipment because of rapidly moving the membranes etc. Because of that and just to make the "chances" more even, I strongly recommend using some cheap but rather decent hardware. I am looking forward to more diagrams from Talk Classical members


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## Guest (Mar 10, 2009)

My hearing is about the only thing that I have left that works OK so I am not going to take a chance


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## Ciel_Rouge (May 16, 2008)

Damage is likely to occur only if you start with high frequencies at maximum volume - otherwise you do not need to worry, the more important thing is membrane displacement in your equipment due to the low frequency side of the spectrum. As is usually the case with any listening, start with the volume turned down and work your way up just to stay on the safe side. By the way, there are a lot of noises in our everyday environment which can cause permanent damage - with this thread I would also like to develop awareness in all fellow-listeners on this forum. I even found a site with hearing protection products and more detailed tests. They also have tinnitus relief products as some members already mentioned the problem:

http://www.digital-recordings.com/product.html

From their test I determined that I cannot hear 18 kHz unless it is at 80 dB - then I can hear a slight signature of that but only with my left ear. How is that for a test accuracy?

Besides sharing the diagrams, I would like to make this thread into our hearing protection awareness thread. There are many companies manufacturing ear plugs or "ear defenders"


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## Lang (Sep 30, 2008)

The tinnitus test is interesting. However, it would be very difficult to test all frequencies that I hear - there is a main frequency, and then, above it, a whole range of quieter tones that would be very difficult to isolate. So I did the main (and lowest) frequency, and the results for the right ear and left ear were different. Left ear 7600, 41, right ear 7600, 65.


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## marval (Oct 29, 2007)

I am with Andante, at the moment my hearing is ok. That is the way I would like to keep it, otherwise I would not be able to enjoy all the beautiful sounds that they pick up (including classical music.)


Margaret


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## Ciel_Rouge (May 16, 2008)

Sure, maybe I was too cautious because I didn't want anyone to take any harm from uninformed use of the test so I made it sound like it is a great hazard to the ears and equipment while it is not  Anyway, this thread is not really about testing but is intended as a more general hearing protection awareness thread.

So, anyone who does not take the test - apart from the music listening experience, how can you tell that your hearing is good? I think it would be very interesting to find examples of good hearing abilities, like hearing really quiet noises from another room etc. - could anyone name things like that? Apart from that - some people who play in symphonic orchestras say some sounds are very loud like the trombones or the cymbal clashes. How do you get around that? Do you were hearing protection when playing? Just curious...


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