Can you hear this? I can't.

If your high-frequency hearing range is restricted due to age, then you can't hear things that other people can. Here's a real-world problem that I can't hear. Can you hear it?
Note: This is an updated version that corrects a problem with the original video. The original is still available at • Can you hear this? I c... Can you hear the problem? See Betty and Debbie discuss my error • He's fixed it now @aud...
CREDITS
The good speakers illustrated are Wharfedale Diamond 121, which are average hi-fi loudspeakers. The 'bad' speakers are Logitech Z200, which are OK for their purpose but of doubtful value for this test.
The headphones illustrated are Sennheiser HD400S wired. Bluetooth headphones may work but your mileage may vary.
CRT television - Sony KD-34XBR970 34" Wega™ XBR® high-definition TV, presumed to be a manufacturer's publicity photo.
CRT - Blue tooth7 CC BY-SA 3.0
Flyback transformer - Appaloosa CC BY-SA 3.0
Music - Just one of my doodles

[@togusa1486]

Have just finished watching. 3/4 of the way through my 19 year old daughter came downstairs “what’s that sound, can you not hear it”. Clearly, as a 58 year old, I couldn’t, and she obviously could. Thanks for providing a true life example😀😀😀

[@johnbravo7542]

Yeah BS!! how are you going to distinguish between artifact and what is written into the music,if that piece of music is not familiar to you?

[@staLkerhu]

Similar case with my dad. He is 68, and he can't hear anything above 11k. I'm 32 now, obviously in better condition, but still I can only hear up to 17,5K and only with my right ear. My left ear ends around 17k. In the last 10-12 years I used mainly headphones, and to prevent others at home scaring the sh*t out of me, I started to use only the left side.

[@rytchbytchrockingclub3867]

Well, it was nicely masked by my tinnitus :)

[@sandwich-breath]

Same same

[@dougg1075]

@@sandwich-breathsame

[@helge2183]

Thats funny, exactly the same frequency range as my tinnitus

[@ianlimbert1342]

I could hear ringing. I hate bell music 😂. On the spectro chart the signal showed as low amplitude so wouldn’t that be harder to pickup. I bet if the overall music didn’t have so much extend on each note a lot more people would hear it?

[@RBLevin]

Ditto

[@zugzwang2007]

I remember exactly what this sounded like, and the spectral spike reminded me acutely of the experience. I can still hear it in my memory, although no longer capable of hearing it in reality.

[@jacobgoerz1953]

same, I did not even need to be in the room

[@catkeys6911]

The old TV squeal, I remember it well, but never knew what caused it.

[@djlafg58]

I'm an 81 yo male who noticed about 10 years back that I was not hearing instruments such as a piccolo, or the high notes of violin or guitars, so I went and got hearing aides specifically for listening to music. What a difference they made to my enjoyment. Despite putting my aides in for the second run through of the tone I could not hear it, so my aides clearly don't get my hearing up to 15Khz. never mind, as you say there are still many octaves of sound to enjoy. On with the music!

[@jackhreha4907]

I lost my freq range by living a good life. Thanks for the good show. Best Regards Jack.

[@stephenstange4194]

At 64yo, heard it right away! Edit: once you said it was the 16Khz from a TV, I doubted… I know I don’t hear that high anymore. But I DEFINITELY heard a high pitch, so I pulled out a FFT spectrum analyzer and sure enough, at 8k (1 octave below 16k) there is a steady tone at almost the same amplitude as the 16Khz. THAT is the tone I heard in my quick first answer, NOT the 16Khz. 2nd edit: after listening to the whole video, I wondered where the 8khz I was hearing (and measuring) was coming from. I did a few tests, I listened to the video through my car stereo, no 8khz (yes, my car stereo system can reproduce 8khz, I tested that). Then back to my home listening environment… I watch KZbin by casting it to my TV and listening through my modest 5.1 system (Yamaha amp driving Klipsch speakers and sub). The 8khz was back. I turned OFF the enhanced sound processing and… No more 8khz!!! So, it was really there in my initial listening BUT was an ARTIFACT of the enhanced surround processing. Lesson learned, turn off all processing if you want to critically analyze an audio stream!! Love your content, keep it coming!

[@JaKeAFC09]

Indeed, DSP processing at low sampling rates may introduce aliasing effects and harmonics by the technical limits of the digital sampling, or certain 'enhancers' may create sub or upper harmonics to 'enrich' the sound, of course the source is heavily altered in this way.

[@andrewtaub1210]

I have seen many audiologists, and in the US they only test up to 8,000 HTZ. Most hearing aids only correct up to 8,000 HZ. The most expensive ones, the ones that are for music, well they correct up to 10,000 HZ. And there was a hint in this video, the high frequency tone not only had nothing to do with music, it was actually unpleasant for those who could hear it. Thank you for this video.

[@Lx655321]

Same here in Germany. 8000 Hz. Explanation was it's the relevant spectrum for not hearing impaired. I wanted to figure out if i hear same on left and right ear. But the frequency in question (the one i hear a lot less on the left ear) seems to be higher than 8 kHz.

[@DivergentDroid]

I just listened to a video playing 15625 hz and yes, it is Very Unpleasant! Everyone should compare the two. I'm so glad I did Not hear it in that beautiful music! Not sure why I can hear it in the video clip that actually played just the 15625 hz.

[@frederickjones4185]

Being 73 years old I didn't hear it -- my cutoff is about 12 KHz. But I do remember that flyback transformer noise very well, especially with cheaper TVs which had metal or bakelite cases. In the more expensive sets with large solid wood cases it was largely damped out. Other common TV noises were buzzing and hissing, due to detuning and poor signal strength. But in the early days the TV medium was so compelling that people would put up with audio interference and just sort of mentally tune it out. I concur with you about the appreciation of music expanding with age. I think it's partly down to the accumulated experiences of life, which seem to engender a deeper emotional connection with the music as well as a widening listening repertoire. Having grown up with 45s and LPs, it's a particular joy and a revelation to revisit some of the great music of the 60s and 70s, beautifully remastered and noise-free thus revealing more of the incredible talent and craft that went into these records. (This is not to say that vinyl can't be revealing, especially to those who grew up with digital!) Thanks for the video.

[@greeneyes66]

Valid points, well put argument. In my youth, I used to be able to come home to our apparment and tell from opening the door: someone's watching TV. My parents didn't know how. Makes me wonder to double check mixes on a spectrogram before rendering them out in the future...

[@timoheinrich8123]

Great video. I'm 50 now and couldn't hear it. Totally agree for all you said. You're so right!

[@666PANDEMONIUM]

"Let's hear it again." Uh, let's not jam knives into our ears a second time for no reason. lol

[@theaustralianconundrum]

5 stars for the lighting, commentary, presentation and overall video production standard in your work. BBC standard indeed. Cheers from Australia.

[@ivalkov]

Oh how I hated this sound 50 years ago:) Now i can't hear it even on Sennheiser.... But I still love my music, and everyday discover something new!!!

[@fredashay]

I didn't hear a problem. That was a beautiful melody! Ah, yes, that high pitched sound from old CRT televisions. That sound was so annoying when I was a kid and I couldn't understand why my parents (or anyone else) couldn't hear it! I guess my old ears don't have the frequency response of my younger ears 😞

[@richclips]

Likewise there was a time I could have heard it too...15.625KHz, although I can't hear, spectroid on my Android phone can hear it! I'm a hi-fi enthusiast, engineering biased and used to be a television engineer. ATC fan, Audio Research, all 2nd hand so pretty affordable:) thank you so much for the videos, I love your take on everything audio.

[@martinrw42]

I love your style. Brilliantly dry wit, implicit and explicit. Nicely overlaying such informative content. Thank you :)

[@JaKeAFC09]

I well remember this from the CRT TVs when i was a kid, i could tell if it was on two rooms apart... Every audio engineer should include steep low cut and high cut filters at least on the master track. Those HF signals are still around us, even in professional recording environment with wide range condenser microphones when dealing with cymbals and acoustic guitars. Some synths and electronics equipment could introduce even higher frequency noises. The major point is that both sub (16k) can be inaudible but still eating up a lot of space in the physical vibration of the speaker, or vinyl groove, or anyway the headroom of any processing device up to the point of clipping, self oscillating or anyway disrupting the good part of the signal. In this case one cannot just use his ears, but additional equipment such as oscilloscope and spectrum analyzers are fundamental. Indeed as far as i know most audio equipment is intentionally designed to have in 20-20,000 Hz range, even master tape machines and Neumann cutting lathes, i'd say it's an industry standard to cut part of the signal that may even cause physical damage to equipment, and this could be something audiophiles tend to forget when such advertised products are claiming frequency response from 10-100,000 Hz where the source signal does not contains such ends in first place. Anything over 15K is not audible by most audience, and even for thiose who can still hear it is not much pleasing. I tried isolating the 14k-16k range using FIR filters, and listen to that alone, it's like the top end of a keyholder dropping on the floor or a chalk scraping on a blackboard. In analog media such frequencies are naturally attenuated in the signal path, digital domain has much shorter path is and well able to keep them as modern speakers are able to reproduce, no wonder (at least early) digital listening experience was deemed harsh/cold/tinny.

[@seejayfrujay]

Most illuminating. Aged 70, over the past five years or so, I have noticed that I hear details in my music collection that, in my youth, I was too impatient? distracted? to hear. Now that there is nothing past 17 kHz, I didn't hear the CRT tone per se (used to drive me crazy), but definitely heard what it did to the rest of the music. As the tone ramped in amplitude, the notes in the clip took on a dead, metallic, unpleasant quality. I cannot help but feel that had I heard this when I was young, I would have picked up on the CRT sound, but would not have noticed what it was doing to the rest of the music. C'est la vie.

[@garysmith8455]

May I add? As soon as the thumbnail popped up with the title of this video and seeing that old TV, I KNEW it was going to be about the flyback transformer!!! I remember as a kid, going to appliance dealers with many TVs on in the demo room and hearing a HUGE chorus of high frequencies! Over the years, it seemed to disappear and no longer heard it. I am 70, and still hear to around 10k. Have always protected my ears from loud noises in factories I worked in, AND many years as a musician in LIVE rock bands. In our pipe organ firm, I still have the best hearing out of my company co-workers, as we regularly tune pipes to 8K. On organ actually goes a full octave above that to 16K, but I must admit, I no long here the top 8 pipes and only here the wind going through them.......🙂

[@Declan4253]

I think knowledge of audio enhances my enjoyment of good audio as well. I am glad I found your channel. Also, I recently got a higher end DAC that has a cool analyzer display that showed that tone...Buyers satisfaction (not remorse)!

[@williamwilson5127]

I remember when I was growing up, the ever-present whine from TVs. When the volume was low, I could here it from two rooms away while walking through the house. It faded away during my twenties. A few decades back there was a period when shopkeepers installed high frequency transducers as a form of teen repellant. Oh, the old days.

[@SethRomano]

I’m in my early 40s and it’s an absolutely wonderful time in my life. I’m young enough where I can hear that high frequency in both ears very noticeably but old enough to have substantial experience with audio engineering and music. I will enjoy it while it lasts!

[@TheDesperateFoxCreative]

Thank you for this video. It helped me explain my experience to another.

[@davidlai1996]

I remember hearing this high frequency tone on a CRT television back in the day, about 20 years ago when our family still owned one!!! And, now close to 30, I can still hear this tone. I hope I can still hear it when I'm 50!!!

[@glenngundlach9907]

Don't hold your breath. It just happens. I haven't heard it since my mid 30s. I worked 45 years in broadcast TV so I was very aware. I can't say I miss it though.

[@davidlai1996]

@@glenngundlach9907 Well, regarding that noise, I can say that I don't miss it either. :) But I also know that one day I will have natural hearing loss, so I'm trying my best to protect my ears -- speakers more and headphones less, and try not to expose them to loud noise, ETC. One of my piano professors recommended active noise-canceling headphones. I haven't used them, but they sound like an interesting thing. He uses a pair all the time when he's traveling or commuting.

[@lawrenlelko]

Just found your channel. Great stuff! I feel a channel binge coming on. You explain things very well.

[@mastrtonberry2]

Yes and I could hear it in any room in the house back in the day

[@andymouse]

I not only couldn't I hear it I couldn't bloody well see it either ! ! Had to get my specs to read the scale on the analyser. What I could see though was the girl in the black is the prettiest !...cheers.

[@johnmerriman274]

Loved the music and didn't hear the high frequency. Great video...keep them coming. My wife walked by as I was watching/listening and said it reminded her of a Monty Python skit.

[@sbbinahee]

Totally fascinating man. I love my music. And sounds. Dometimes yo technical gif my understanding, but always entertaining,humorous, and educational.

[@redrebel__]

i kinda miss tube tv's mostly cause i miss my grandpa who used to work on televisions and i used to spend alot of time with him at his workshop.

[@rsluggy6485]

When I was in my late teens and early 20's, the then very common ultrasonic motion detection systems employed in a lot of burglar alarm systems could often be physically painful to be around. One retailer I frequented had detectors (understandably) in the area where they displayed high end audio equipment. Ironically, it was nearly impossible to enjoy hanging out with the equipment I so coveted :) By the time I was employed in the burglar alarm industry a few years later, the technology had improved to where ultrasonic detection was (and still is) typically done at 40+ kHz, where even young ears are unlikely to hear it.

[@andrewhaines3259]

A neighbour of my mums has installed some ultrasonic cat deterrent devices in the garden. My wife, children and nieces all stood there going "ow" every time they pulsed. I stood there, quite oblivious. Being 56 has some small advantages! 😂

[@andreasboe4509]

Audio quality isn't always about the enjoyment, but also about unconscious effects of your brain getting fatigued by having to filter out what should have been filtered out by a sound technician. I've edited recorded lectures for ten years and I always removed frequencies over 11kHz. It made for less noise and better MP3 compression and comprehensibility.

[@marktubeie07]

I love how your lounge room never changes ;)

[@robsteegs806]

I am 61 years old, and can't hear the TV flyback frequency anymore - and I don't regret it! For room eq I use a DAW with a spectrum analyzer plugin. I am astonished how often the flyback tone is present in LP's and streaming audio.

[@LazerJass]

I'm going on 42 and got very annoyed but pleased with my loudspeakers. Oh, and I still have a Beovision Avant cathode ray tube television used as an oversized boombox as reference in the same room. Thank you for many hours of fun. Cheers

[@Nemura12]

I'm 43 years old. New to tur hobby, and since I child, I'm hyper sensitive for everything specifically sound. My sound equipment is The IEM project red by crinacle and a Dac. The sound was very clear to me and even painful to listen. In conclusion, music can be very subjective, so don't be sp hard to yourself and enjoy your music.

[@Anybloke]

I can't hear it (headphones / laptop) but I'm 61 and once sat through a whole Motorhead gig.

[@greeneyes66]

One more thing as a real life example of when this issue slipped both the mixing and the mastering engineer: In Patti Smith's 1988 album People Have The Power the title track had an annoying constant high tone on CD... which my hifi equalizer back in the day identified around 18kHz. Annoyed me to no end and spoilt that song for me...

[@cdlong1377]

Another great video! This point is excellently demonstrated by the end of A Day In The Life on Sgt Pepper. The Beatles and George Martin put a high frequency tone right before the playout loop. I used to be able to hear it perfectly and now at 48, I cannot. My German Sheppard can hear it, however. And she gets up and runs from the room every time! In this video, I was able to hear some high frequency distortion, but I suppose it must be at a lower frequency, as someone else suggested. Incidentally, I learned over the last 6 years that I have a congenital hearing issue which is now a 50bB loss at 1kHZ. High and low frequencies are normal for someone at my age. I look at it as a sort of built-in eq!

[@captiveimage]

I used to be a bit of a hi-fi buff, and definitely had the experience to pick out some issues with playback in the past. I'm getting old, however, and I know, having tested my hearing with a signal generator, that I can't hear much above 12 kHz any more. Too many rock-concerts where I was all but deaf for hours after the events can’t have helped, but old age does that to you too, I guess. It's still worth having 'good' kit, I think. I've got a fabulous pair of Gold Planar GL2000 headphones running off a balanced output headphone DAC/AMP, which I know is a great combination. I couldn't discern the signal overlay you were describing, it's above my max frequency range, but the headphones still offer a fabulous sound-stage and delicious, rich sound experience that I really enjoy. I completely agree with you that spending more than a given amount on equipment would be, for me at least, a complete waste of time. Arguably, I could buy better equipment, but the cost-benefit I would enjoy would be minimal, if even discernible. Your objective, practical test clearly demonstrated that the range of frequencies I can hear is much reduced, which comes as no surprise. I would imagine that there are other audio issues with my hearing too. Am I as sensitive to distortion, or noise, or even simple signal clipping that I used to be? My guess is that I’m probably not. I’ve only just discovered your channel, but it’s become a firm favourite. Thank you for sharing your experience and common sense with us. I’m super impressed with your ability to stay open and unbiased in your reviews. How you managed to maintain that level of composure when faced with reviewing the £1,000 cables…. sorry, Interconnects, was a masterclass in balanced [no pun intended] delivery. Bring forth the snake-oil!

[@AudioMasterclass]

Thank you for your comment. 12 kHz isn't at all bad. You still have more than nine octaves of your original ten.

[@mantaproject]

This brought back some memories, from my childhood to adulthood I have heard this annoying frequency, at first I thought I had some kind of brain problem, later I heard about this TV problem somewhere and was a little relief to know what it was. I turned 50 today and can still hear this frequency, probably because of my ADD, although it's harder to spot now, on the first example I thought I heard an annoying resonance, on the second example I thought it was the frequency and because of your clue I was sure. Glad the days of CRT are over, although some fanatics still use it for color management.

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

I didn't hear it. But there was a time...

[@d4sched567]

I could not hear the tone in your video but I immediately knew it was there because my spectrum analyzer's 15KHz bar was lit up like a Christmas tree!

[@KenTeel]

Good news for us old guys. This stuff never stopped us, anyway. Well done. Thanks for the video. In my young years, I could hear the burglar alarm frequency at Sears. When my family would go there to shop, that noise would drive me a bit buggy. Thankfully, after years of experience playing in loud bands, that problem has been solved...... now... what did you say.... can you repeat that?

[@themathrock1607]

I was scarred because I couldnt hear it on my tv but I totally can on my studio monitors.

[@ray_notes8170]

I could hear it initially, but I didn't hear it when you played it with the spectrograph

[@rhalleballe]

As a young guy, i could hear it pretty well. It really annoyed me heavily. Now i am 64 years old, due to the latest tests my ears cannot hear higher frequences than 10.000 Hz. It is as it is. But - from 10.000 to 15.000Hz its not that much as people may think. Its only a so called quint (five tones in a scale). Its way less than an octave. Keep in mind, from 20Hz to 10.000Hz its 9 Octaves , even more than a piano provides. But from 10.000 to 15.000 its only a little more than half of an octave.

[@chrisantoniou4366]

...and arguably not much music at those frequencies.

[@ryuichiro.sakuraba]

Indeed it's that tell-tale CRT high pitched hum that I remember that was semi-obnoxious that lingers - even when the TV is muted, it still is perceptible. 30 years past and yep, could still hear that.

[@ManoelNunesOSan]

I'm 55 and I can still hear it, but not as intensely as when I was 16. I remember that when a TV was turned on at the living room I could "sense" it from outside the house. I can still hear up to around 18Khz (ONLY if the sound level is set high enough). At this frequency it's not so much a defined tone, of course, it's more like an acute pressure inside the ear.😅

[@sloth_energy]

Using the same principle, around a decade ago high-pitched 'anti-loitering' devices were used in some shopping centres, parks, etc. targeting young people.

[@QuinnKallisti]

I can certainly hear it, 31 years old, using ribbon tweeters.

[@fredericktennant9151]

So after being told off for watching your last video on my TV I waited until I was at my 27" iMac with my iFi Hip DAC headphone amp and S12 IEMs to make sure that I am listening correctly lol. Im old so I missed this but I do remember making a high pitched noise as a ringtone that only the young could hear, it worked great when in a pub with noisy little shits near by I just turned up the sound and left it on repeat until they left, yes I was told off as its a sonic weapon lol.

[@powernattoh]

Many thanks for excellent video and exposé of infrasound phenomena, but your assistant Betty needs to blink more... 🤣

[@TheTheycallmelau]

Great video! Now I remember why I set m EQ 10000Hz and above to 3-4dB lower than the rest, Its annoying to hear those high frequency ringing

[@ProjectOverseer]

I could barely hear it, but my young 12yr old son heard it loud an clear ... I'm 63 and pretty lucky I heard anything.

[@wsub9214]

43 years old. Couldn't hear it. If it matters, I'm using the DAC in an Allen & Heath XB14 broadcast console, and a pair of Sony MDR7506 headphones. KZbin quality setting on the player is at 4K (not sure what that does for audio, if anything). As a kid I remember being able to tell when the TV was turned on, even when the volume on it was all the way down, as soon as I walked into the living room.

[@timothystockman7533]

At 77 years, I can't hear that high any more. But back in the day, noise from the horizontal oscillator was extremely irritating. Listening to your video on Magnepan speakers, which theoretically have good response at 15K.

[@theaustralianconundrum]

I am 64 years of age and I can hear the difference between CD's that have more compression than others. My original early 1980's CD's for the most part sound almost muted across the frequency range if compared to modern "re masters" done in the 2000's. To my ears this is extremely obvious. I own several thousand CD's in my collection and out of all of them Telarc provide me with the best DDD benchmark regardless of year of recording. To my ears they sound fantastic and without fatigue. That said I have no doubt that probably a quarter of my collection are compressed and lack dynamic range while also sounding harsh. I do own a very good 2 channel dual mono power amp with a damping factor of 800.

[@johnanon6938]

Decades back when I did electronic repairs I could hear that tone and more, also back then CRTs weren't the only electronics that gave that tone or slightly higher. Now my upper hearing is around 14.8kHz although any higher and it just blends in with tinnitus cheers to ageing.

[@ericberger6966]

I want to add the 19 kHz pilot tone at analogue stereo FM broadcasting. Beside all hearing issues it can be crucial in the level control of the recording on analog tape, visible by "freezed" VU level meters and hearable reduced headroom in the heights lower than 19 kHz. Remembering the good old MPX-Filter.

[@AudioMasterclass]

Yes this was a thing. The tuner or receiver should have filtered it out but cassette decks would sometimes have an extra filter just in case. DM

[@ericberger6966]

@@AudioMasterclass My tuner had a switchable filter too. So, you could choose one, but be shure to use one.

[@albiepalbie5040]

I didn’t hear it Then at the end I certainly noticed what was missing and the improved purity of the sound I just thought that high - reverb ? - was a bit of added “soundscape” It’s to do with context for me - what I heard was fine at first What I heard was different without it I had no idea what it was supposed to sound like - whatever that means - the original sound that people go on about they can never know I’ve definitely got my preference ! Another fantastic thought provoking video !

[@AudioMasterclass]

The sound is just as it came out of the keyboard, 30 years ago so a bit old fashioned. DM

[@albiepalbie5040]

@@AudioMasterclass like me !

[@spectrelayer]

Great video. I can still hear amazing highs - but they are attenuated. HOWEVER, my spectrum analyzer doesn't miss a thing. And I don't need to tell you about the number of commercial releases that contain a high-frequency notch that some engineer didn't filter out. The audio in my music library doesn't even need a 19 kHz pilot. Imagine that. And yet ... some tracks...

[@RiggerMantis]

Very nice video. And I'm 41 and can just make out the whine, and have tested my own hearing as being able to hear up to about 15800 Hz. One of my coworkers, who's 36, can still hear all the way up to around 19000 Hz.

[@PhillipParr]

Just tested mine, also 41. In isolation I can hear up to 15kHz exactly but beyond that is silent.

[@marxman00]

The Valsalva maneuver.... its free and its the best audio upgrade you can do!

[@TrainsAndWellbeing]

I couldn't hear it audibly on a conscious level but it was extremely uncomfortable; like a stress response I could feel in my head. I am a migraine sufferer and CRT TV's used to be a trigger so I suspect that the stress I was feeling was the tone.

[@margeneroso3101]

Can’t either but I have very old ears! Hearing is a technical matter notwithstanding there are medical issues as well. The WHO classifies “normal hearing” at between “0 - 25dB” pressure levels. Adults with healthy ears are closer to 15-17 kHz … human infants can hear higher than 20 kHz … cymbal freq range is bet 300-600 Hz but add the high harmonics can reach as high as 20 kHz … bottom line … at my age I’m thankful for my hearing! Though I can’t hear 15 kHz … I can still hear the subtle cymbal playing 9ft behind the piano … the sound of the piccolo on the right side in front of the brass … I continue to enjoy what my ears allow me to enjoy! ❤ Thank God for great musiK! 🙏🙏🙏

[@yolahola1]

I definitely heard that. I was actually testing how high of a frequency I can hear on my 5.1 Bowers and Wilkins setup, and my limit seems to be 18Khz. 19Khz is barely audible and I get this strange feeling of pressure in my ear when playing a tone that high. In case people are wondering, no I didn’t turn the volume up to hear tones that high of a frequency. I’m just young I guess.

[@d4sched567]

Just be careful. It's very easy to blow your tweeters that way.

[@yolahola1]

@@d4sched567 Oh yeah, I've heard. I left it at the volume I normally listen to. I assume that would be acceptable.

[@pimianimavdo1523]

Between my bouts of intense tinitus (specially if stressed or very tired) and living in the 55 age zone, that above 15K frequency is but a mere dream if it is layered over a tune, more so if the tune is unknown and even more so if after the initial volume rise it sounds to me like the recording was slightly saturating (something I did not notice during the end of video playback, nor during the meter in my face part of your video). Perhaps the first playback was too loud for me to appreciate the music and for me to perceive saturation in what I was listening (I keep telling people to turn down the volume, specially on relatively bad sound systems as I like to listen to music without saturationn). Anyhow, Great video (as always). Cheers! PS Did you enter a Red-Lobster fest lately? Perhas the colors in this video were also saturated ;)

[@LeeBergerMediaProd]

definitely used to hear the fly back in my youth.

[@PhillipParr]

Alas, at 41 I remember the sound of a CRT well but I cannot hear the high tone in this 😔 I can however still hear various coils whining in different frequencies on my graphics card when various colours are rendering so... yay?

[@shingdaz]

Mastering is soundstage structure, then freq contrast etc.eq, addding compressor to an entire track in the mastering process, crushes the hugh freq’s with increased amplitude etc trying to make them sound more aggressive, it can be percieved as louder, at the cost of smearing out of focus the 15,000 20,000khz soundstage etc. limiters when used properly if required provide a contrast to the upper freques in the signal…these need to be properly structred or they will float around like balloons, mishaping the soundstage.

[@henrikpetersson3463]

I can't hear it in the way I used to as a kid (I'm 44 now) but I can still hear it. I experience it as more of a feeling, a high frequency buzzing in my head. Not as I remember hearing it when I was younger.

[@theundertaker5963]

I am beginning to love the banter coming from those two AI assistant ladies 😂, the blond is gunning for you my mate, treat her better or soon she will take over! P.S. I am no longr young, nor am K considered old but I recon myself somewhat of an audiophile and a music head. i was also around when the CRT TVs were a thing as we had several of them around in our house and in other relatives houses. I am very glad to report that my hearing is good enough to have picked up on the frequency from the get go on my pair of Beoplay EX earbuds. Though I have to admit they are amazing earbuds and make everything sound more accurate and crispy, but thay being said I specifically remembered the frequency fron the days I was a kid and I could pick it up from the Tube TVs of the older days, especially before they warmed up and they atarted showing the picture.

[@GustavoJacob]

At 48 I still can hear it, not as loud as I used to when I was 15 though. It could be really annoying.

[@BerndSchmidt27]

Been curious because of the old TV in the teaser picture if this video was about the flyback frequency, i clicked it and indeed it is :-) Hope this comment will not get too long - there are some anecdotes I'd like to share. TL;DR: I can't hear it. Of course I was annoyed by the flyback tone of the TV-CRTs at least up to my late-30s. But also the 19 kHz pilot tone in stereo FM broadcasts bothered me a lot - I don't know when I finally lost the capability of heraring it because I eventually had an FM tuner which filtered out the 19 kHz far better than my old one did - must have been around 30. I knew a record studio owner from a choir where we both sang, who ordered an IR remote control from Sony for my first CD player, which came without one, but I found out, that it had an IR Receiver built in. To fetch it, I visited him in the studio where he proudly showed me (1988) his new digital tape machine. The control for the huge tape workstation was a small CRT monitor with an awfully loud flyback sound. I asked him (who was in the mid-40s at that time) if he wasn't bothered - especially as a sound engineer - being surrounded with this noise - and the answer was "I don't hear that"... (!) When I was 35 my 10-year older colleague mentioned that it was "one of the big advantages of age" for him, that the CRT "tone" is no more an issue to him - and he was right: About 10 years later there was a TV report of the "Mosquito" teenager repelling audio system, which I watched together with my son. He asked me "don't you hear this?" - and indeed: I did not. Meanwhile I'm 63 and my tinnitus (which accompanies me half my life) is a mixture of high frequencies, which "kindly" remind me of the tones I'm not able to hear anymore... fortunately I'm compleatly comfortable with it.

[@clytemnestra]

I mouthed "oh no" almost immediately - not painful but certainly really unpleasant

[@erwintimmerman6466]

I heard a tone. But that was just the ringing in my ears 😆

[@johnwarren4665]

Almost 41, I heard it clearly through my headset to the point that I had to take it off. I won't say it was painful, but it wasn't very pleasant. Very interesting video.

[@Joss0051]

Strangely I can hardly hear it, but it feels like pressure building up behind the music making it a bit uncomfortable. It could be imagination but the music without the hum feels cleaner and more spacious. Not that I have fantastic hearing, I can't hear mosquitos as easily as once, the bite marks prove that. Very interesting and all the best regards Joseph

[@johnbull5394]

I probably could have heard it, but I am on my laptop so I didn't. My experience was similar to yours.

[@TheBRBvideos]

Also my impression even though I can't hear 15Kh 'directly'

[@mephitusincognito7918]

Yes, for those of us that can hear it -- it hurts.. ..seriously hurts... I heard this one immediately. The CRT TV sitting in the dining room is still functional so I know the sound of a noisy flyback all too well... As for audio pros that can't hear this... they need to find a way (visually if nothing else) to hear this if I'm to listen to the music they mix. Something fun.... The sound of a light saber in star wars is the interference of deliberately putting a microphone way too close to a CRT and picking up the sound .. or rather magnetic interference ... caused by the TV keeping in sync with its NTSC video signal... Move the microphone around near the TV to 'swing' your blade...

[@TheEeliciousOne]

More gratuitous Debbie and Betty please. Good speakers away for a wee bit, couldn't hear it - but that might be my aged addled ears.

[@TheEulerID]

The moment I saw the CRT, then I realised this was going to be about 15,625 Hz as I recall being able to hear it in my youth. No longer of course. As far as music is concerned, then the highest note in a normal orchestra is C8 on a piano (about the highest not on a piccolo as well). That corresponds to 4,186 Hz. That's over two octaves down from the accepted range of human hearing. Of course, that's the fundamental, and there are higher harmonics, but for the most part very high frequencies don't play a huge part in most music.

[@c128stuff]

At age 55, I can still hear this, but only just.

[@sayhellotovin]

I used to be able to walk down the street and hear which houses had a TV on as I walked by. No longer it seems as I failed the test. 😢

[@keithchongyuctss5229]

It felt like my ear was floating when the sound played

[@nicksmith4507]

I am just old enough to remember the last days of System A on my dad's dual standard Sony set. Line frequency 10.125 kHz !

[@tsunamimae1965]

There is a beautiful track - Islands by King Crimson. When the final, beautiful trumpet solo kicks in, same high freq noise is present and ruins whole track. I guess everybody involved with mix and mastering were deaf to 16kHz and higher freq and just... Didn't hear it.

[@VinnieLeeStudio]

I've recently discovered the "use phase rotation to get more headroom out of an asymmetrical track" trick. I've tried the iZotope RX7 Phase module on a whole mix, and it did make a difference in the maximizer headroom. I know that a lot of things can lead to an asymmetrical waveform. Maybe I should high pass less? Or ease on the asymmetrical virtual tube saturation? Could you tell me that is this trick really useful/necessary? If so, should I use it on every vocal/brass/drum track, or just before the limiter when mastering? Thanks!

[@AudioMasterclass]

I sense that you seek more loudness. I'm really an advocate for getting the right loudness rather than achieving more of it, so I'm probably not the right person to answer your question. Who knows though? I might be tempted to experiment. DM

[@firebladeclements]

Strange thing for me was I felt it somehow but couldn't hear it. It also seemed to smear the mid frequency. None of that appeared on the final run. The only other thing I've noticed that on, is being by a microwave when running. It throws my equilibrium off and I have to move away. Crazy world stuff right there!

[@imqqmi]

My hearing peters out around 14khz at age 46. I noticed it when I was messing around with a PAL monitor the other day or not notice since I couldn't hear the whine. So I got still 9.3 ish octaves left :D I noticed that the Queen greatest hits 2011 remaster is quite a bit brighter than the originals, probably the person remastering it has gone on in age as well ;)

[@szeredaiakos]

One of those pause & comment videos. There is some weird high frequency noise, sounds like aliasing artefacts .. or dithering .. can't really tell. It definitely has it's body beyond my hearing range. There is a slight chance that what i am picking up are only ghost fundamentals and the actual problem is beyond 15kHz. Edit: lol... I completely missed this one. That noise from old CRT is something i do remember from childhood. It is nothing like aliasing or dither.

[@robfriedrich2822]

The audio compression could also filter it out as not necessary.

[@RemcoJvGrevenbroek]

Yeah the good iold days of singing tv's. If i remember correctly it was especialy noticable with brighter images

[@StephenDriver-jk7hi]

Well, I can't hear the 15 kHz whine listening on decent headphones (I'm 54) - but also I can't hear whatever the problem was on the previous version of the video that's been corrected on today's version. So I guess that's my audiophile credentials blown! I enjoyed the piece of music, by the way.

[@artysanmobile]

The modulator was never really audible from the television speaker so much as from the power supply and flyback xformer physically. It was loudest when no sound was present and, like all tones, terribly location sensitive, disappearing with a minute movement of the head. My hearing is especially acute not as a test instrument, but rather as a musical instrument. I’m unconcerned about technical anomalies I know exist but are inaudible to me. What is really special about my hearing, special enough to warrant high pay in my work, is my knowledge of, and ability to represent, musical balance, the overtone sets that identify instruments. None of those functions require my hearing to be flat to some arbitrary frequency. I don’t know why any music lover would have trouble understanding this.

[@augustinvaclavik6282]

That sound is like a razor to my ears... gosh i wish my ears were a bit older, dont know what qualities would i miss in music but gosh life would be so much better, hearing this hiss from electronic devices is always terrible, and it happens quite alot. I dont think this sound is 20khz, but it sure is close

[@ralphmckenzie8802]

At 68 I have tinnitus in my left ear which creates a "hole" in my hearing at those frequencies. Interestingly it made my tinnitus substantially worse when the music was playing, suggesting that although I can't directly hear the frequency spike some part of my aural system can still detect this, perhaps through the jaw or skull bones?

[@pappalamma]

It's quite interesting, that if you pause the video during that hf tone, you'll hear also some "blip" (or how to describe it) before the speakers go silent. This doesn't happen when pausing just regular sound, Btw, I sorta hated when my parents stated watching tv those days, i think this sound was even worse when the tv was freshly turned on and warming up :)

[@AudioMasterclass]

Yes this could be a thing. When I'm editing my demonstrations that use tones I nearly always have to fade in and fade out to prevent clicks. I see no reason an audible click should not occur even though the tone itself is too high to hear. DM

[@JaKeAFC09]

With an oscilloscope you could clearly see the high frequency tone being so loud that it takes a lot of space, the same goes on with the speaker oscillating at that frequency for nothing, hence even if you are reproducing silence or a very quiet section, an abrupt interruption of the signal can occur in a moment where the oscillation point is far from the zero crossing, causing speakers rushing back to the zero position. But more practically i think the click occurs in the digital to speaker signal chain, when such event occurs a burst and trail of resonance is generated.

[@PhilipBallGarry]

I'm an old guy and used to repair TV's for a living. I could honestly hear TV line frequency and instinctively know a TV set was on the moment I walked into a room. These days at a smidge under 60 and with post- Covid tinnitus in both ears I can't. Or rather wouldn't if there were any CRT TV's left. So, no I'm afraid I didn't hear the artifact on the sample - even with good headphones on. The subject of colour purity errors caused by a TV being moved whist switched on or from a faulty degaussing circuit is probably better left for another time 😆

[@Balikon]

Interesting experiment. I am not sure, if I really heard the high frequency or I only imagined hearing it. But I felt very uncomfortable when I listened to the music.