Human Hearing Limit

[Darkspacekilla]

Can  someone explain to me why headphones go above the upper and lower limit of the human hearing range of 20-20k hz and go to for example 5-25k hz? Apologies if this is a stupid question but I just feel like headphone manufacturers are just throwing big numbers at people less educated in the subject. Thanks 

[flibberdipper]

It might be easier to manufacture them like that? I don't know.

[helping]

A handful of people can hear up to there. If it doesn't cost money to do it, and costs money to limit it, why bother?

[Musikman]

I believe a lot of it has to do with marketing. Most people aren't aware of the 20hz to 20-22khz hearing range and assume the a larger gap between the numbers means better sound even though they technically won't be able to hear a difference. That's just my thoughts as to why they do that.

[Ryan_Stein]

typically more with bass than highs, you can still feel the pressure even though you cant hear it. so most bass speakers, headphones and subs go down to 5Hz

[Askew]

I can hear it (~20khz), I wish I couldn't though you'd be amazed how many electronic things emit high pitched noises.

 

As above, very low pitch sounds are undirectional (if there's a sub in the corner of a room and you go in blindfold it will be hard to tell which corner) and can be felt.

[Darkspacekilla]

I can hear it (~20khz), I wish I couldn't though you'd be amazed how many electronic things emit high pitched noises.

 

As above, very low pitch sounds are undirectional (if there's a sub in the corner of a room and you go in blindfold it will be hard to tell which corner) and can be felt.

Well hearing above 20khz is probably alot more awesome than on hearing till 18khz  

Gosh Darn loud machines at work!

[Askew]

Well hearing above 20khz is probably alot more awesome than on hearing till 18khz

Gosh Darn loud machines at work!

 

No it isn't, no sounds worth hearing exist in those frequencies, just irritating sounds as I'd imagine tinnitus to be like except there is a source and when you move away from it it's gone.

[BoredErica]

How much detail can I hear on the upper limit of my hearing? Absolutely none, to me it's an indistinguishable monotone note that drives me nuts. Marketing, yes. Much marketing.

[ShearMe]

A larger range can sometimes indicate that the frequency response is more flat in the audible range, but I agree it is one of those specs listed on a box just to make certain people think it's a better product

[Bwdzxc]

I can hear it (~20khz), I wish I couldn't though you'd be amazed how many electronic things emit high pitched noises.

 

As above, very low pitch sounds are undirectional (if there's a sub in the corner of a room and you go in blindfold it will be hard to tell which corner) and can be felt.

Omnidirectional* is what you mean, just for next time!

[Feveredbike]

A handful of people can hear up to there. If it doesn't cost money to do it, and costs money to limit it, why bother?

Yeah. I can hear up to 22kHz, which is pointless because 20+kHz at any volume is just painful to me.

[helping]

I can hear it (~20khz), I wish I couldn't though you'd be amazed how many electronic things emit high pitched noises.

 

As above, very low pitch sounds are undirectional (if there's a sub in the corner of a room and you go in blindfold it will be hard to tell which corner) and can be felt.

actually if you listen closely in a perfect environment and are allowed to move you could probably point to it within a few feet of accuracy if you're sensitive enough

[Guest]

Probably to compensate for falloff at the extremes of the spectrum, especially bass. No doubt marketing plays a role, if you put big enough numbers off the box people will want to buy it right?

[Shakaza]

I can hear it (~20khz), I wish I couldn't though you'd be amazed how many electronic things emit high pitched noises.

 

As above, very low pitch sounds are undirectional (if there's a sub in the corner of a room and you go in blindfold it will be hard to tell which corner) and can be felt.

Ugh, I hate hearing high-frequency sounds. There was some kid on my bus who used his iPad or phone to play a VERY irritating high-pitch sound. Someone said it was a dog whistle app or something, but it must have been a pretty low frequency one for us to hear it. There are few things more annoying.

[Askew]

actually if you listen closely in a perfect environment and are allowed to move you could probably point to it within a few feet of accuracy if you're sensitive enough

Yeah I wasn't saying impossible I just said hard, in comparison to locating a mid and higher it is much more difficult.

I wasn't factoring in moving around to be honest, I tried this in my very very imperfect sound environment with a couple of subs and I'd say you could play an audible sound low enough to evade your senses.

I think it has something to do with how close our ears are together as to why the sound seems to be coming from everywhere but I'm not too read up on it.

[helping]

Yeah I wasn't saying impossible I just said hard, in comparison to locating a mid and higher it is much more difficult.

I wasn't factoring in moving around to be honest, I tried this in my very very imperfect sound environment with a couple of subs and I'd say you could play an audible sound low enough to evade your senses.

I think it has something to do with how close our ears are together as to why the sound seems to be coming from everywhere but I'm not too read up on it.

it might, but it probably has more to do with better diffraction of lower frequencies and longer wave length in addition to better resonance in an ideal(?) room. 

 

though I don't know much about acoustics and harmonics 

[Valhallatier]

humans actually have a higher/lower frequency hearing range, but the decibels is what matters. like if you wanna hear example 30khz, you need to boost the dB by alot but that's where other sound can get ear piercing.
and why does headphone have such wide freq response? well it SUPPORTS that frequency. but how good it reproduce is dependant of the source/headphone capability.
also, freq response doesn't mean shit to how good the sound in headphones :rolleyes:

[Askew]

it might, but it probably has more to do with better diffraction of lower frequencies and longer wave length in addition to better resonance in an ideal(?) room.

though I don't know much about acoustics and harmonics

Maybe one day I will educate myself more on those subjects but to be honest I'm not interested enough/don't have a reason to need the info at the moment.

[EmoRarity]

Probably to compensate for falloff at the extremes of the spectrum, especially bass. No doubt marketing plays a role, if you put big enough numbers off the box people will want to buy it right?

Pretty much this. Even I you can't hear those frequencies you can hear when they aren't there.

[Trader]

An estimate for the frequency range means very little without a specification for how much tolerance +/- in sound pressure level.

Different manufacturers do not even bother to tell you the premises for a given range.

And even with a very wide range it will probably not sound very good if the response inside that range looks like a rollercoaster.

Serious manufacturers will most often give you their specs for the given range, and if they do you can pretty much always bet their response will be better (more flat) inside the range. This will in most cases result in less colouring of the original sound.

This apply to speakers and headphones but also with microphones.

 

On the other hand we have to remember that we normally do not listen to sinus test tones. All music is sum of a rather complex chaos of sinus tones. Many sounds are made up of a wide variety of signals in a possibly wide spectrum. If a baffle is not able to produce overtones correctly this could destroy part of the total impression even though some bits of the signal is outside our "hearing range".

 

The only way to predict if a product is good or not is to listen to it. And remember none ears are the same, thus will all our impressions be slightly different too, so discussing what sounds good to others does not make much sense. 

 

Sorry for my bad english. Happy shopping. 

[BoredErica]

An estimate for the frequency range means very little without a specification for how much tolerance +/- in sound pressure level.

Different manufacturers do not even bother to tell you the premises for a given range.

And even with a very wide range it will probably not sound very good if the response inside that range looks like a rollercoaster.

Serious manufacturers will most often give you their specs for the given range, and if they do you can pretty much always bet their response will be better (more flat) inside the range. This will in most cases result in less colouring of the original sound.

This apply to speakers and headphones but also with microphones.

 

On the other hand we have to remember that we normally do not listen to sinus test tones. All music is sum of a rather complex chaos of sinus tones. Many sounds are made up of a wide variety of signals in a possibly wide spectrum. If a baffle is not able to produce overtones correctly this could destroy part of the total impression even though some bits of the signal is outside our "hearing range".

 

The only way to predict if a product is good or not is to listen to it. And remember none ears are the same, thus will all our impressions be slightly different too, so discussing what sounds good to others does not make much sense. 

 

Sorry for my bad english. Happy shopping. 

Because looking at a little spec showing max and minimum frequency doesn't tell us how well the music is reproduced, there's no real informative content there - Just marketing IMO. I think a lot of audio hardware specs are not measured that well either. There's not much incentive to test their products super vigorously if others don't and audiophiles don't. It's not like car engines where car geeks test them on identical conditions bit by bit and if you as a company exaggerate things, you'll look ridiculous.