Are you an old fogey?

[Guest]

From today's New York Times.

There is a sound that is irritating to teens, but inaudible to older people. It has been played loudly to ward off teens from loitering around your business, and by teens as a ringtone so teachers cannot tell when they are receiving an incoming class in school.

Can you hear it?

Listen

 

[Svenskaflicka]

From today's New York Times.

There is a sound that is irritating to teens, but inaudible to older people. It has been played loudly to ward off teens from loitering around your business, and by teens as a ringtone so teachers cannot tell when they are receiving an incoming class in school.

Can you hear it?

Listen

Eeeeek! Yes, I can hear it - it's horrible!

 

[Guest]

Eeeeek! Yes, I can hear it - it's horrible!

So do the poll. I can't hear it. It is a recording of sllence to me.

Count your blessings.

By the way, the article is here. Updated so it works!

 

[English Lady]

Nope, not a squeek. Actually, I heard it on the breakfast news when i was on holiday, it's called a mosquito or some other annoying bug nd some lab guy set it to a frequencyus old duffers could hear and it was bloody awful.

 

[3113]

I can vaguely hear something. My husband, on the other hand, can hear it just fine. And he didn't find it awful, just "whatever." Neither of us are teenagers.

I'm sure it has a lot to do with age, but I wonder if it also has to do with "ears." That is, I wonder how many people they tested with tin ears as compared to perfect pitch. My husband is someone who listens to a huge, variety of music. He can listen and appreciate almost anything. I, by compare, have a very narrow range when it comes to music I can listen to; anything outside that range either doesn't register on me or irratates the fuck out of me.

By the way, I couldn't access the article.

 

[Guest]

By the way, I couldn't access the article.

Fixed above and also here

 

[Liar]

heh. First I thought I was old. But then I remembered I had the volume muted.

 

[matriarch]

Didn't hear a thing, even with the volume up full.

But then I knew I was old fogey even before trying this out.

Nothing new there, then.

 

[Equinoxe]

That was an obnoxious sound.

I guess I'm glad my ears are fine.

 

[Liar]

It's just a beep. At 18 KHz. But it seems to have no sub frequencies whatsoever or those that are ther cancel each other out.. If I change the playback speed, numerous sub tones appear. Interresting.

http://img314.imageshack.us/img314/797/fq3pc.gif

 

[impressive]

Barely. Certainly not enough to be a repellant, though.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Yay!!! I ain't old....I just feel like I am.

 

[angelicminx]

Yes, and what an annoying, obnoxious sound! Akin to fingernails on a blackboard. UGH!

 

[buxxxom]

That's an awful sound! Are older people supposed to hear it and be annoyed by it or not hear it at all? I heard it, but now wish I hadn't.

 

[Guest]

If you can hear it, it means you are youthful and vibrant.

It is used as a teen deterent sound, or as a ringtone for teens who don't want old folks knowing they are getting an incoming call (like in school).

If you can hear the annoying sound, rejoice, you are still young.

 

[LadyJeanne]

I couldn't hear it...then I realized my laptop volume was way down.

It's a high-pitched whine...This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. This is only a test. Were this a real emergency, the signal you just heard would be followed by announcements...

 

[R. Richard]

I can't tell because the damn link blew my Windows XP off the net. However, here is a related item.

Students find ring tone adults can't hear

NEW YORK - Students are using a new ring tone to receive messages in class -- and many teachers can't even hear the ring.

Some students are downloading a ring tone off the Internet that is too high-pitched to be heard by most adults. With it, high schoolers can receive text message alerts on their cell phones without the teacher knowing.

As people age, many develop what's known as aging ear -- a loss of the ability to hear higher-frequency sounds.

The ring tone is a spin-off of technology that was originally meant to repel teenagers -- not help them. A Welsh security company developed the tone to help shopkeepers disperse young people loitering in front of their stores while leaving adults unaffected. The company called their product the "Mosquito."

Donna Lewis, a teacher in Manhattan, says her colleague played the ring for a classroom of first-graders -- and all of them could hear it, while the adults couldn't hear anything.

 

[Guest]

 

[Guest]

heh. First I thought I was old. But then I remembered I had the volume muted.

PMSL!




I heard it, just about.

 

[Tom Collins]

It's just a beep. At 18 KHz. But it seems to have no sub frequencies whatsoever or those that are ther cancel each other out.. If I change the playback speed, numerous sub tones appear. Interresting.

http://img314.imageshack.us/img314/797/fq3pc.gif

Yer such a Geek, Liar. I think I'm in love.

I heard it and, as someone else said, wish I hadn't because I keep hearing the ghost of it in my head.

 

[oggbashan]

No.

I didn't hear it and I didn't expect to.

I attended too many rock concerts in my youth, worked in a dockyard close to the steam hammers and rivetters, and I used to suffer from tinnitus - not any more, the hearing for high tones has gone.

When young I used to hear dog whistles and other high pitched sounds that my peers couldn't hear. When my schoolfriends didn't believe me, the school's oscilloscope and tone generator proved that I could hear what I said I heard.

Now I can't and I'm grateful.

Og

 

[cheerful_deviant]

Oddly enough, I can hear it easilly, and it was very annoying.

This is surprising since I already suffer from some hearing loss. Mostly due to years in the construction industry when I was young and stupid, (read: didn't wear earblugs during piledriving, concrete cutting... etc.)

 

[minsue]

... I used to suffer from tinnitus ...

Maybe that's why I don't hear it. I've been hearing that loverly high pitched tinnitus whine all damned day anyway.

 

[rgraham666]

I could hear it once I turned the volume on my computer as high as it could go.

Didn't find it that annoying though.

 

[NoJo]

A really good pair of stereo headphones (like they use in broadcasting) have a frequency response up to about 18 Khz. Most domestic PC speakers won't be able to reproduce this frequency.

Besides, most audio compression techniques filter out high frequencies (MP3 does this).

The theoretical maximum frequency you can hear on a CD is 22.5 Khz.

I heard the sound clearly on my laptop with the volume turned up high -- but what I was hearing (and probably most of you too) were "alias" frequencies -- artefacts produced by the digital-to-analog conversion process when the PC plays back the audio.

I know for a fact that I can't hear the frequency at which the actual device operates. Most adults lose the some of the cilia (small hairs) in their inner ear, which are what enables you to hear. The cilia to go first are the smallest ones, which are the ones that vibrate in respond to high frequency sounds.