3 ms·

Funny that the author says we haven't found any such people in the past 100 years of testing with truly exceptional hearing, such as a greatly extended hearing

Funny that the author says we haven't found any such people in the past 100 years of testing with truly exceptional hearing, such as a greatly extended hearing range, so they probably don't exist, yet I was tested at around 13 as having 33KHz upper range, which allowed me to hear a beetle walking over leaves and grass in a basement window sill at about 20 feet away... Unfortunately I lost a lot of hearing through concerts, headphones, and traffic, but I can still tell the difference between an MP3 and CD-quality music much of the time.

YSFEJ4SWJUVU6 9y ago
Your describing of “MP3” as a level of quality doesn't really give credence to your claim.
Applejinx 9y ago
That's not even an additional octave over 20K. It amazes me when people behave as if there's a magical hard limit that's really, really precise and applies to all humans. I think you probably understand that people get locked into arguing for victory, and if you tell them you were tested with thus and so range (as a young person, which is plausible) they will simply call you a liar. My own experience is this: when I was a kid, I got an ear wax problem, and had it removed (hasn't recurred). It was a horrible painful nightmare with nasty tweezers and water squirters, and I was just a little kid… but afterwards, sound (especially very high frequency sound) was a revelation. Later, when I was a little older, the advent of digital audio (at first, in record albums) was a nightmare to me, because I couldn't understand how or why that stuff sounded SO BAD. And of course my early experience of CDs was pretty nightmarish: pod people music, with all emotion and humanity weirdly excised. That's what got me into audio: wanting to understand this, and then later, fix it. I did actually succeed: I can produce and mix and process digital audio that young me would not be horrified by. But especially if I had to meet that higher bar, I won't be able to do it at less than say 22 bit/80K, well engineered. If I get to use all my current tricks I could do it at 20 bit/80K: I can cheat word length easier than I can compensate for a nasty brickwall filter. 24/96K is widely prevalent and enough, given good converters. I'm not convinced 192K is at all necessary, but the more people crusade against it, the more contrarian I get ;) I've got a Beauty Pill album mastered in 24/192K and it sounds freaking phenomenal. Mind you, I have professional equipment designed to handle that.

YSFEJ4SWJUVU6 9y ago

Your describing of “MP3” as a level of quality doesn't really give credence to your claim.

Applejinx 9y ago

That's not even an additional octave over 20K. It amazes me when people behave as if there's a magical hard limit that's really, really precise and applies to all humans. I think you probably understand that people get locked into arguing for victory, and if you tell them you were tested with thus and so range (as a young person, which is plausible) they will simply call you a liar. My own experience is this: when I was a kid, I got an ear wax problem, and had it removed (hasn't recurred). It was a horrible painful nightmare with nasty tweezers and water squirters, and I was just a little kid… but afterwards, sound (especially very high frequency sound) was a revelation. Later, when I was a little older, the advent of digital audio (at first, in record albums) was a nightmare to me, because I couldn't understand how or why that stuff sounded SO BAD. And of course my early experience of CDs was pretty nightmarish: pod people music, with all emotion and humanity weirdly excised. That's what got me into audio: wanting to understand this, and then later, fix it. I did actually succeed: I can produce and mix and process digital audio that young me would not be horrified by. But especially if I had to meet that higher bar, I won't be able to do it at less than say 22 bit/80K, well engineered. If I get to use all my current tricks I could do it at 20 bit/80K: I can cheat word length easier than I can compensate for a nasty brickwall filter. 24/96K is widely prevalent and enough, given good converters. I'm not convinced 192K is at all necessary, but the more people crusade against it, the more contrarian I get ;) I've got a Beauty Pill album mastered in 24/192K and it sounds freaking phenomenal. Mind you, I have professional equipment designed to handle that.