Friday, February 27, 2009

Can You Hear This Tone?


As you probably know, as we age, our hearing deteriorates. It's often in the high frequencies that the loss is most noticeable. Apparently there was even a device developed in 2005 called the Mosquito that businesses could use to deter teenagers from loitering outside their businesses. This website has a recording of a frequency that supposedly people over the age of 25 can't hear. I'm a bit skeptical because I am well over that age and I have to assume that all the years of touring have damaged my hearing to some degree, but I had no problem hearing it. What about you?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can hear it and i'm also well beyond 25. I checked it through an analyzer and the main noise is at 15kHz.

any business using that could be losing a lot of potential customers

I can hear stuff up to about 16kHz. you might be interested in these hearing tests:

http://www.flashpresskits.com/hearingtest/

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

Anonymous said...

I can hear it, and I'm well under 25. My younger brother can hear it. My nearly-50 dad can't, though, nor can my mother.

Seamus said...

I have moderate tinnitus, but I could still hear it faintly. Still, my work was considering getting one, and I couldn't say no fast enough!
Edinburgh train station uses a similar device for pest control which emits a very high-pitched pulse every second or so, and I can't stand being in there for too long because the sound is so damn jarring to my ears.

Anonymous said...

26. And quite annoying.

Love the blog, by the by.

Jon-Michael