9 ms·

It's an interesting story but the whole investigation seems rather slipshod. > “The bulk of the evidence suggests that the Hum is not an acoustic sound.” He ex

by taneq 6y ago

It's an interesting story but the whole investigation seems rather slipshod. > “The bulk of the evidence suggests that the Hum is not an acoustic sound.” He explained: “This is indicated by the simple fact that most people do not hear it.” Surely it would be trivial to set up a sensitive microphone, record some samples when a "hum-hearer" says it's happening, and analyze the frequency spectrum? Instead they're just guessing that it's RF-related... but then the article goes on to discuss a bunch of sources of low frequency acoustic noise? > For instance, multiple Hum hearers, if in the same room together, will match the Hum to different acoustic frequencies. “That never, ever happens with standard acoustic sources, of any frequency. It just simply never happens,” he says. If only we had some kind of machine that could objectively measure acoustic frequencies... If it were high pitched, we'd write it off as tinnitus. If there's no low-pitched equivalent (is there?) then it's probably just a sampling of people who live within a block or two of someone with a high-powered subwoofer on their stereo.

OneLeggedCat 6y ago
> If there's no low-pitched equivalent (is there?) There is indeed low-pitch tinnitus. It's much less common. I have a version of it. In complete silence, I "hear" a rather pure 73 Hz tone. Luckily I am rarely in complete silence, or I think it would drive me crazy. A doctor said that I perhaps have inner ear damage that my brain has compensated for. I've had it for about a year. This is the tone: https://www.szynalski.com/tone-generator/#D2,v1 https://www.szynalski.com/tone-generator/#D2,v1
- rleigh 6y ago
  Wow, that must be really annoying. I have it at a very high pitch. I did get it checked out, and inner ear or nerve damage was suggested as a cause. However, they also suggested that poor posture putting strain on the muscles around the neck could also be a factor, and I have noticed it gets worse when I slouch for extended periods. If you haven't investigated this side of things, it might be worth a go.
  - karmakaze 6y ago
    I was thinking that the 73 Hz tone is rather pleasant compared to the ~13kHz tone I hear/perceive in both ears almost constantly. It used to bother me a lot, now I accept its presence and try to focus on things I'm doing instead. Of course there's no knowing what the 73Hz experience is like when sustained. My high-pitched tone I attribute to a combination of exposure to loud live music and hypertension from coffee (and to a lesser extent alcohol). The intensity and pitch does vary and often something will trigger the start of the tone in the morning, like the sound of the towel hitting my ears when drying my hair. I've recently cut down my coffee intake dramatically.
    - OneLeggedCat 6y ago
      I think I agree with you. The low D note I hear must be more pleasant than the 13kHz you hear.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  How do you know that's the frequency what you hear? Is it because when you add more 73Hz you don't notice it as much as adding other frequencies?
  - davidmurdoch 6y ago
    Other nearby tones will sound "out of tune". At least that's how I can find the pitch of my tinnitus.
  - OneLeggedCat 6y ago
    I "hear" the tone clearly. From that, I found this online tone generator, and experimented until it sounded nearly exactly like what I hear. I grew up around a lot of music, so maybe it's easier for me to pick out a tone.
- teuobk 6y ago
  I've heard something similar for the past two years, except mine is at 78 Hz, and only in my left ear. As with you, I hear it only when it is extremely quiet. When the room ambient noise is above about 35 dBA, I never hear it. Also, oddly, it comes and goes over a scale of months, seemingly at random. One day, I'll wake up in my quiet bedroom and hear it, and I'll continue to hear it in quiet environments for a month or two. Then, after those several months, I'll wake up again and find it gone. I notice a very loose correlation to it abating after a loud weekend, like a weekend spent driving my race car or doing metal fabrication, but otherwise it seems random. A while back I ran it down with medical professionals, but the gist of that expensive adventure was that it was likely idiopathic. It appears to be of the subjective type rather than objective, but -- long story short -- that's not definitive. My "solution" for now is to run the ceiling fan at night during the months it's present.
  - hazeii 6y ago
    Very similar experience, after a bit of research it was clear the 'global hum' explanation loses out to the much simpler explanation that it's an internal effect. I too found exposure to loud noise supressed it (e.g. regularly suppressed for a couple of days after nightclubbing), also only 'audible' in very quiet surroundings (even lightly touching an earlobe caused the 'hum' to cut out). It went away after life got noisier (kids'n'dogs).
- Razengan 6y ago
  How do you know the frequency of what you hear? Is it a guess or measurement?
  - OneLeggedCat 6y ago
    Another person asked this too. There's obviously no way to directly measure it, since it is simply a perception of something that does not actually exist. I only "hear" it because I have either neurological damage or inner ear damage. But I know musical notes, and it's a D2. A C#2 is too low, and a D#2 is way too high. It might be more like a 72Hz instead of 73Hz (D2), but it's close. It's a "guess" in the same way that any singer might sing any other particular note. I can hum it, in tune with itself, although the sound of my own voice destroys the perception. I can use that tone generator I linked above, starting it and stopping it, and compare until I hit the right note. Just like tuning a guitar by ear. I do have to have absolute quiet to hear it, but I can reliably hear it 100% of the time when in absolute quiet.
- ddingus 6y ago
  I have experienced this after a long noisy drive and big change in elevation. For me, was closer to 50 60hz.
jcims 6y ago
I've heard a low pitched 'hum' for a couple of years now at my house. It is weird because it actually has two tones, one at ~28hz and one at ~36hz and it alternates between them...usually at the lower frequency but will sometimes hop up to the higher frequency for a few seconds. I've tried recording it with several different high quality microphone setups and absolutely nothing at all. Also, nobody in the house and none of my neighbors hear it. So at this point I think it's something in my head, but I only hear it when I'm in my house. Never when I'm on the road. Not sure if this counts as 'the hum' but it's definitely weird.
- carlmr 6y ago
  How do you know the frequencies they're at? Did you Match it with sounds from your computer? What constitutes high quality microphones for you? Where these microphones that were made for this low frequency range? EDIT: Especially on the microphones maybe the actual noise isn't 28Hz, but the 28Hz are harmonics of a 14Hz, 7Hz, 3.5Hz,... vibration. These harmonics may get produced inside some structures near your ear, explaining why you hear it and others don't. You'd need special equipment to measure these low frequency vibrations.
  - jcims 6y ago
    Yes matching sounds on the computer. I can actually hear a beat when they are close but not exact. Mics were a variety of xlr and usb from rode, sennheiser and yeti over the past few years. Definitely in the frequency range but only moderate sensitivity at that freq and low to moderate self noise. Not exactly scientific but I would expect to see a bump of energy in the spectrum and get nothing.
    - carlmr 6y ago
      I'd be really intrigued whether you can find something at the harmonics using an infrasound microphone (some can measure down to 0.1Hz), but the price is probably prohibitive for an experiment.
      - 6y ago
garyfirestorm 6y ago
Yes you're absolutely right. I work in NVH dept at one of the car companies. We measure interior noise using mics which are accurate starting from below 20 Hz to 20 kHz. So this should be very trivial.
- lph 6y ago
  One of the frustrating things about "the hum" that the article mentions is that, academically, it's been lumped into the lunatic fringe of conspiracy theories, and serious scientists aren't interested. It does seem like the right equipment and expertise should pretty easily be able to determine, conclusively, whether or not any given "hum" is a real physical sound.
  - garyfirestorm 6y ago
    In one of my old apartments, I was able to hear modulating pure tone low frequency noise on some nights. I definitely could tell the noise was perceptible only during night. I think there could be many reasons for this noise from water filtration plants, power plants, to any other large industrial applications.
bigbubba 6y ago
There is simply no way they forgot microphones exist. The obvious conclusion then is they did try microphones, detected nothing with them, then decided not to report this negative result.

by taneq 6y ago

OneLeggedCat 6y ago

> If there's no low-pitched equivalent (is there?) There is indeed low-pitch tinnitus. It's much less common. I have a version of it. In complete silence, I "hear" a rather pure 73 Hz tone. Luckily I am rarely in complete silence, or I think it would drive me crazy. A doctor said that I perhaps have inner ear damage that my brain has compensated for. I've had it for about a year. This is the tone: https://www.szynalski.com/tone-generator/#D2,v1 https://www.szynalski.com/tone-generator/#D2,v1

rleigh 6y ago
Wow, that must be really annoying. I have it at a very high pitch. I did get it checked out, and inner ear or nerve damage was suggested as a cause. However, they also suggested that poor posture putting strain on the muscles around the neck could also be a factor, and I have noticed it gets worse when I slouch for extended periods. If you haven't investigated this side of things, it might be worth a go.
- karmakaze 6y ago
  I was thinking that the 73 Hz tone is rather pleasant compared to the ~13kHz tone I hear/perceive in both ears almost constantly. It used to bother me a lot, now I accept its presence and try to focus on things I'm doing instead. Of course there's no knowing what the 73Hz experience is like when sustained. My high-pitched tone I attribute to a combination of exposure to loud live music and hypertension from coffee (and to a lesser extent alcohol). The intensity and pitch does vary and often something will trigger the start of the tone in the morning, like the sound of the towel hitting my ears when drying my hair. I've recently cut down my coffee intake dramatically.
  - OneLeggedCat 6y ago
    I think I agree with you. The low D note I hear must be more pleasant than the 13kHz you hear.
srtjstjsj 6y ago
How do you know that's the frequency what you hear? Is it because when you add more 73Hz you don't notice it as much as adding other frequencies?
- davidmurdoch 6y ago
  Other nearby tones will sound "out of tune". At least that's how I can find the pitch of my tinnitus.
- OneLeggedCat 6y ago
  I "hear" the tone clearly. From that, I found this online tone generator, and experimented until it sounded nearly exactly like what I hear. I grew up around a lot of music, so maybe it's easier for me to pick out a tone.
teuobk 6y ago
I've heard something similar for the past two years, except mine is at 78 Hz, and only in my left ear. As with you, I hear it only when it is extremely quiet. When the room ambient noise is above about 35 dBA, I never hear it. Also, oddly, it comes and goes over a scale of months, seemingly at random. One day, I'll wake up in my quiet bedroom and hear it, and I'll continue to hear it in quiet environments for a month or two. Then, after those several months, I'll wake up again and find it gone. I notice a very loose correlation to it abating after a loud weekend, like a weekend spent driving my race car or doing metal fabrication, but otherwise it seems random. A while back I ran it down with medical professionals, but the gist of that expensive adventure was that it was likely idiopathic. It appears to be of the subjective type rather than objective, but -- long story short -- that's not definitive. My "solution" for now is to run the ceiling fan at night during the months it's present.
- hazeii 6y ago
  Very similar experience, after a bit of research it was clear the 'global hum' explanation loses out to the much simpler explanation that it's an internal effect. I too found exposure to loud noise supressed it (e.g. regularly suppressed for a couple of days after nightclubbing), also only 'audible' in very quiet surroundings (even lightly touching an earlobe caused the 'hum' to cut out). It went away after life got noisier (kids'n'dogs).
Razengan 6y ago
How do you know the frequency of what you hear? Is it a guess or measurement?
- OneLeggedCat 6y ago
  Another person asked this too. There's obviously no way to directly measure it, since it is simply a perception of something that does not actually exist. I only "hear" it because I have either neurological damage or inner ear damage. But I know musical notes, and it's a D2. A C#2 is too low, and a D#2 is way too high. It might be more like a 72Hz instead of 73Hz (D2), but it's close. It's a "guess" in the same way that any singer might sing any other particular note. I can hum it, in tune with itself, although the sound of my own voice destroys the perception. I can use that tone generator I linked above, starting it and stopping it, and compare until I hit the right note. Just like tuning a guitar by ear. I do have to have absolute quiet to hear it, but I can reliably hear it 100% of the time when in absolute quiet.
ddingus 6y ago
I have experienced this after a long noisy drive and big change in elevation. For me, was closer to 50 60hz.

jcims 6y ago

I've heard a low pitched 'hum' for a couple of years now at my house. It is weird because it actually has two tones, one at ~28hz and one at ~36hz and it alternates between them...usually at the lower frequency but will sometimes hop up to the higher frequency for a few seconds. I've tried recording it with several different high quality microphone setups and absolutely nothing at all. Also, nobody in the house and none of my neighbors hear it. So at this point I think it's something in my head, but I only hear it when I'm in my house. Never when I'm on the road. Not sure if this counts as 'the hum' but it's definitely weird.

carlmr 6y ago
How do you know the frequencies they're at? Did you Match it with sounds from your computer? What constitutes high quality microphones for you? Where these microphones that were made for this low frequency range? EDIT: Especially on the microphones maybe the actual noise isn't 28Hz, but the 28Hz are harmonics of a 14Hz, 7Hz, 3.5Hz,... vibration. These harmonics may get produced inside some structures near your ear, explaining why you hear it and others don't. You'd need special equipment to measure these low frequency vibrations.
- jcims 6y ago
  Yes matching sounds on the computer. I can actually hear a beat when they are close but not exact. Mics were a variety of xlr and usb from rode, sennheiser and yeti over the past few years. Definitely in the frequency range but only moderate sensitivity at that freq and low to moderate self noise. Not exactly scientific but I would expect to see a bump of energy in the spectrum and get nothing.
  - carlmr 6y ago
    I'd be really intrigued whether you can find something at the harmonics using an infrasound microphone (some can measure down to 0.1Hz), but the price is probably prohibitive for an experiment.
    - 6y ago

garyfirestorm 6y ago

Yes you're absolutely right. I work in NVH dept at one of the car companies. We measure interior noise using mics which are accurate starting from below 20 Hz to 20 kHz. So this should be very trivial.

lph 6y ago
One of the frustrating things about "the hum" that the article mentions is that, academically, it's been lumped into the lunatic fringe of conspiracy theories, and serious scientists aren't interested. It does seem like the right equipment and expertise should pretty easily be able to determine, conclusively, whether or not any given "hum" is a real physical sound.
- garyfirestorm 6y ago
  In one of my old apartments, I was able to hear modulating pure tone low frequency noise on some nights. I definitely could tell the noise was perceptible only during night. I think there could be many reasons for this noise from water filtration plants, power plants, to any other large industrial applications.

bigbubba 6y ago

There is simply no way they forgot microphones exist. The obvious conclusion then is they did try microphones, detected nothing with them, then decided not to report this negative result.