Can You Hear This? The "Mosquito Ring tone" Test

[Jason Dunn]

<p><em>A little off-topic Friday fun for you all...have a great weekend!</em></p><p>I think it was 2007 when this "high pitched ring tone" craze kicked off - the idea being that older people couldn't hear high-pitched frequencies, so younger people would put these high-pitched tones on their cell phones and they'd hear when their phone was ringing - or when they got a text message - but their teachers couldn't. These same high-pitched tones would also be used by some businesses in an attempt to drive off younger people who were loitering in front of their establishments. I listened to one of these tones that I wasn't supposed to be able to hear at my age, and I heard it just fine. I knew there was a scientific basis for this, but I figured since I could hear the tone my hearing was "perfect" - I've always gotten perfect hearing scores when I've had my hearing tested. <a href="http://www.freemosquitoringtones.org/" target="_blank">I found a Web site today</a> that shows how wrong I was about being able to hear tones I thought I could!</p><p>I cranked up my speakers and clicked on the preview buttons for each tone: I can hear the 16khz tone, but I can't hear the 17khz tone or anything higher. I'm 34 years old, so the fact that I can hear the "30 and younger" tone means I have slightly better than normal hearing in terms of high-pitched frequencies (according to this scale at least). What about you? Where does your hearing drop off, and how does that relate to your age - are you better or worse than average? And if your hearing is worse than it should be, what band were you a roadie for in the '80s? ;-)</p>

[crimsonsky]

I'm 56 (57 in August) and can hear 15kHz, but not 16 and higher. So I guess my hearing's pretty good for an old coot. My dog, however, wasn't very happy with me testing those! I think she would have covered her ears if she could!

[Alber1690]

I don't know...I'm 19 and I can't hear anything at 17khz and higher...lol. I'm doubting the existence of any sound in those. Haha. Although my 8 year old sisters claim they can hear something up until 20khz, I'm not completely sure if they are distinguishing between the actual "buzz" and the "pop" at the start and end of the tracks.

[David Tucker]

I'm 28 and can hear everything except the 22 kHz but I've always had rather sensitive hearing.

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

*sigh* I'm getting old. I can hear 18khz if I lean forward, but the only really audible last tone is the 17.4khz one.

[EscapePod]

At 62, I can easily hear the 12khz, but not the 14khz. So I connected up the wave generator at work to an analog amp w/speakers, and I max out approx 13.1khz.

That doesn't bother me that much for two reasons:

(1) I've played bass guitar since I was 14, and only cared about the low notes.

(2) I don't have to hear the kids' cellphones going off all the time (if they get the mosquito ringtone -- which I strongly encouraqe) <img src="http://forums.thoughtsmedia.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif" border="0" alt="" title="Big Grin" class="inlineimg" />

[Chris Gohlke]

I'm 36 and I dropped of somewhere between the 16 and 17 mark. So better than average. Actually impressive considering the abuse I gave my ears in my late teens.

[griph]

I'm 56 (57 in August) and can hear 15kHz, but not 16 and higher. So I guess my hearing's pretty good for an old coot. My dog, however, wasn't very happy with me testing those! I think she would have covered her ears if she could!

I was 55 in January - I can clearly hear the 15kHz signal and just hear the 16kHz sound (above the background noise of my PC that is!) - so I have the ears of a 30 year old - just wish the rest of me wasn't the age of a 60 year old!
;-)

[starstreak]

I'm 39. I can hear the 18khz if I put my ear up to the speaker. But at normal sitting distance, I can honestly say I can only hear 17khz and the 17.4 only if I turn off everything but my computer.

I "try" to take care of my hearing. Back when I was younger (17ish) when car audio just started taking off, I was one of the few that listened to the quality not the loudness. Never listened to load music with the windows up, etc. I guess it paid off.

[Mountain343]

Hmmm after 14 years in the Fire Service, with all of the sirens, chainsaws, yelling and other loud noises, I'm only able to hear the 10khz one on my speakers. Maybe it's my hearing, maybe it's the speakers, but I'm only 31 so... who knows.

[djdj]

On a good set of headphones that can actually reproduce the highest frequencies I can hear up to 24kHz (my own testing). On the laptop speakers I'm on right now I can hear up to 20 kHz, but the 20, 19, 18 kHz samples are rather quiet.

Beyond about 18 kHz things become more of a "I sense that there is a sound there" instead of a "I hear an audible tone." But at those highest frequencies (>20kHz) I can definitely tell when they are on vs. when they are off.

I'm 36, BTW.

[marlof]

I've lost a part, so it seems. I can hear up to 16, can't hear 17 and 17.4, but can hear 18 again. 19 is faint, and 20 and up are gone again.

[jeisner]

I'm 32 I can hear 18 at a normal distance (with tv on in the background) and 19 leaning up to the speakers.. 17-17.4 are the most annoying, actually really annoying sound, maybe it should be my SMS tone at work ;-)

[keirmeister]

I'm 36, and I can hear all of them! 22kHz is definitely faint, and it's hard to hear with alot of other noise going on, but I can make out the frequency and even hum the "note" back. The 22kHz tone reminds me of that faint TV ringing I sometimes hear that drives me nuts.

Kewl.

[Rob Alexander]

At 52, I can hear 12khz, but not 14. I guess that puts me right about where I'm 'supposed' to be. I'm with EscapePod... I hope all the kids get 14khz or higher ringtones so I don't have to hear their phones going off all the time. Even in class (I'm a professor), I really wouldn't care if their phones rang if I couldn't hear them.

[Gerard]

I'm 47, and can just hear 15KHz. 14KHz is painful. I've always been overly sensitive to the higher frequencies, not in the sense of hearing way up high, but rather experiencing physical pain when I hear anything over about 10KHz. Must be part of why I gravitated towards working with bass instruments and play the cello myself.

On a note about listening to these tones on a computer; I found nothing was audible above 12KHz at first, but then remembered that my RealTek Audio setup was such that most volume above 10KHz was scrubbed. As I said, those frequencies and me do not get along. So I temporarily disabled the mixer and re-tested, and found that a) the range I could hear went a lot higher, and b) that the background hum/hiss in the test tones vanished and a clear tone was audible. If anyone's having trouble hearing these tones, and especially if you hear ANY background noise besides a clear sine signal, disable your EQ and try again.

I'd guess that speaker quality might play a large role in hearing some of the higher frequencies. I listened through the speakers of my Asus 901 netbook first, and found it somewhat more difficult to hear the upper levels of my range. Listening again with BeyerDynamic DT 880 headphones was a lot more focused in all frequencies.

[geneb]

I'm 47 and I can hear all of the frequencies.

However, I have always had very sensitive hearing and avoided loud music and sounds because they were too painful to be around.

[doogald]

I could just barely hear the 14 khz, the 12 and the 10, but the only one that I truly heard was the 8 khz. And I am quite a bit younger than 60. But, I've known that my hearing has been going for a while, and if there is a genetic basis for this, it's pretty certain that I'm in trouble. Sucks.

At least I don't have to worry about hearing the mosquito ring tone, though. That must really suck to be able to hear it, based on the 8 khz. When I was doing these my kids, who were upstairs, were complaining about it.

[edit] I just did it with earbuds in and it was quite a bit different. I could definitely hear 12 very clearly. I'm just a bit worse than I should be, apparently.

[buzzdev.net]

Hi Jason,
don't you think, that ability to hear some frequencies has total dependency on your sound equipment in the first place?

If your speakers/headphones cannot transfer those high or low freqencies, there's no way for you to hear that, even if your ear would be able to catch 22kHz at 0dB.

You can measure this stuff only with reference speakers or headphones, which can transfer at least 20Hz - 22kHz in LINEAR manner, so all frequencies has equal amplitude. Usually around 0dB.

See your headphones/speakers specs (if any) and the graph showing the frequency response.

buzz

[Brad Adrian]

Which do we lose first: our hearing or our memory? I am positive that the original discussions we had about this ringtone were well before 2007 and closer to 2004!

[Snail]

At 43, I can still hear 23kHz, which is better than my 11 year old! I remember doing a practical in a High School Physics lesson, where me and a couple of friends could still hear a 27kHz signal. Long time ago now...

[firedog]

Hi-

I'm 52. I cranked it up through my stereo, and I could hear down to the 24 year old (18khz) if I cranked it up very loud. At normal volumes I could hear 15k clearly.

I bet most PC desktop systems can't even reproduce the more high pitched notes. So those of you who couldn't hear above 14khz or so, it may not be you. I know the published specs say they can reproduce to 20khz, but they probably can't, or not at a volume you can hear the tone.

My Logitech PC speakers are rated 20khz, and I could only hear 14k through them, even with Shure in the ear earphones plugged into them.

[asims]

I'm 45 and I tested the tones out with my 16yr old beside me. I could hear the 15khz but not the 16. My son said that he felt more than heard the 16khz. Neither one of us could hear the 17, so we stopped there. I think I'll go back and try the others just to see if it's just a certain range that I can't hear. I'm careful about the volume level of radios, TV, etc. in our house, including personal headphones/earphones.
I tried all of this on my DELL laptop speakers (less than a year old) with the volume cranked up, but I think I'll take the ideas posted here and try some external speakers.

My wife is younger than I am, but she couldn't hear the 15khz. She wasn't too happy.

[Jason Dunn]

...I'm not completely sure if they are distinguishing between the actual "buzz" and the "pop" at the start and end of the tracks.

Haha....yeah, my wife (who is younger than I am) said she could hear the tone higher than I could but I had to explain that the pop of my laptop speakers made when the file started wasn't the tone. :D

It's also worth noting that it's possible not every speaker system can even reproduce the requested frequencies...so you almost need to try this test with a really good pair of headphones.

[uzziah0]

I'm 46 and have Dog Whistle for WM5,
according to that I can hear 15.5 kHz but not 16 kHz.

I can hear pretty good, except in a crowd.
Only trouble is hearing my wife when she is in another room; she says she can hear me just fine, but I can hear that she is saying something, but can't tell what she is talking about. ... She thinks its just with her.

[Gerard]

Hey, I have that too! Actually my trouble hearing my wife's voice is usually tied to the radio being on. The compression or some other quality of sound used in CBC radio broadcasting tends to mask my wife's average tone. If she's angry, or if there's laughter in her voice, no problem. But in an average speaking tone it just sort of melds with whoever's talking on CBC Radio 1. My kid's voices don't do that.

[jdmichal]

I can clearly hear up to 20kHz on my headphones rated to 22kHz. 21kHz is sketchy, and 22kHz is non-existent, but I'm not sure whether it's me or my headphones.

I also generally have trouble hearing people with background noise. But it gets better if I concentrate, so I think it's something in my head. Shoddy manufacturing :)

[Jason Dunn]

I'd guess that speaker quality might play a large role in hearing some of the higher frequencies. I listened through the speakers of my Asus 901 netbook first, and found it somewhat more difficult to hear the upper levels of my range. Listening again with BeyerDynamic DT 880 headphones was a lot more focused in all frequencies.

Indeed, a great point, and one that I didn't think of when I made the post.

[MLO]

I don't think the age/sound relation is accurate. Here's why:
I can't hear the 39 and younger tone, but I can clearly hear the 30 and younger, the 24 and younger (all three) and one of the 18 and younger. I'm 37, so I should be able to hear the 39 and younger, but none of the others.

Maybe there's another factor that the people making these mosquito ringtones are overlooking.

[jdhill]

Tones ???

What tones !!!

I couldn't hear any of them (the wife confirmed that the first few were actually playing).

I guess it's off to the hearing aid store for me !!! :D

[KevinRPhillips]

It most certainly could be your speakers instead of your hearing... the crappy speakers I first tried it on I could only hear 14Khz and lower. Even though I am 48, I've always had very good hearing so I figured it was the speakers. (although I acknowledged that my hearing might not be as good as it used to be)

However, I just tried the test with a different set of speakers and can clearly hear the 20khz and even the 22khz but I do have to crank it up pretty good to get it over the background noise. (There's a dehumidifer and freezer running in the same room)

The wife however, who's also 48, can't hear worth crap. (I thought she was joking at first) That explains why she sometimes asks if the song I play for her is the original artist or someone else, I don't think she hears as good as she remembers the song!