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Diplacusis - perceiving pitch differently in each ear.

Tim Link

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I had never heard of this but discovered I was suffering from it while listening to sine wave bass tones through my speakers. I think was 80Hz. At first I thought I heard distortion and figured it was my speakers having a problem. Then I tried listening on headphones on a completely different system and still heard it, which made me think it must be something wrong with the file I was playing. Finally I listened to it one ear at a time with the headphones. The tone sounded like a different pitch depending on which ear I used! With both ears combined I got the impression of some kind of noise in the signal. Fortunately it was a temporary condition and I recovered from it by the following morning. Interestingly, the music I was listening to still all sounded in tune. My left ear was perceiving the correct pitch and with both ears combined it was dominating my perception. With the addition of the right ear I perceived noise in the signal.
 

charleski

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There's a host of factors that affect our hearing. But research on this is difficult, as there's a relatively large difference in hearing between different species, meaning that it's hard to develop an animal model that's relevant. Drugs and hormones (like oestrogen) can have a significant effect, such that hearing in women varies with the menstrual cycle, for instance.
 

jae

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The most common cause of diplacusis is unilateral/asymmetric hearing loss. It could be temporary from something like unilatral noise exposure, residual water in the ear from showering/swimming etc. but nothing to ignore. If you experience it again with no explanation or you were recently sick with a virus, it might be prudent to get audiometric testing.
 
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Tim Link

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The most common cause of diplacusis is unilateral/asymmetric hearing loss. It could be temporary from something like unilatral noise exposure, residual water in the ear from showering/swimming etc. but nothing to ignore. If you experience it again with no explanation or you were recently sick with a virus, it might be prudent to get audiometric testing.
Thanks for the advice. I'll definitely pay attention. I checked it just now with headphones and both ears are in sync.
 
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