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Hearing -120db and lower
- Thread starter ShiZo
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Given some gain I can hear -140 db or lower.
If you have a quiet listening environment, and are willing to play 0 dbFS at 120 dbSPL, at least in the 3-5 khz range during what is otherwise quiet you could hear it.
Is it important listening to any recording? No way. I've seen somewhere the instantaneous dynamic range of hearing is about 60 db. And after even a short loud sound, it takes time for your hearing sensitivity to get back to its most sensitive level (temporary threshold shift). One could in theory have a recording with loud parts and long periods of quieter parts that might make -120 db in a sense audible. Good luck finding more than a few that fit that description.
If you have a quiet listening environment, and are willing to play 0 dbFS at 120 dbSPL, at least in the 3-5 khz range during what is otherwise quiet you could hear it.
Is it important listening to any recording? No way. I've seen somewhere the instantaneous dynamic range of hearing is about 60 db. And after even a short loud sound, it takes time for your hearing sensitivity to get back to its most sensitive level (temporary threshold shift). One could in theory have a recording with loud parts and long periods of quieter parts that might make -120 db in a sense audible. Good luck finding more than a few that fit that description.
-120dB compared to what? That's the question. decibel is nothing more than a ratio or a percentage.
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-120 db less than any noise, can it be heard? Or do i need to tell you the db of the noise?
Perhaps you should specify decibels SPL, because 120dB alone has no units for reference.
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But, to answer your general question, I'd say you can't hear the loud and the 120dB lower sound simultaneously.
40dBSPL-120dB = -80dBSPL < 0dBSPL hence impossible.
It's only possible to hear it when you have a 120dBSPL tone. But I can imagine you still won't hear it. I can't even hear people talking in loud concert. And the talking has to be way over 60dB in itself.
The lower limit of hearing is 0dBSPL, so, no.
http://www.sengpielaudio.com/TableOfSoundPressureLevels.htm
Not just that, but the quietest room you’ll find, outside of an anechoic chamber, is about 18 dB. My room’s noise floor is 28 dB, so I would have a very difficult time hearing any sound quieter than my room.
I just had this discussion over at AVS. 0.3% distortion, about 50 dB below source material is audible.
It can drive you crazy if you stay in too long. I always thought it would be the ultimate torture device because you could tell the public “So, we put the terrorist in a quiet room. What’s wrong with that?”
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There is no easy way to answer that for all conditions. I understand what you are trying to find out. It is hard to pick one threshold.
Some testing indicates once distortion gets below -60 db for test tones it isn't audible. The number is maybe more like -40 db for almost all music.
Now I can come up with some odd situations that exceed those, but they've nothing to do with any normal situation. Like 350 hz tone with only 10 th harmonic distortion. Yet there is unlikely to be any such device with that kind of distortion. You might hear that at -80 db. All this is dependent upon the level, the harmonic structure of the distortion and some other things.
Look at this masking curve for a single tone. Anything at a higher frequency that is under the curve whether distortion or another signal is masked and not heard.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4172235/#!po=49.7826
This is a really interesting article talking about hearing aids. But interesting since there is science that a starved Class AB amp sounded worse than a class D amp, or how we perceptible THD differs based upon frequency and content.
One of the references suggests 0.1% is audible for some types of distortion.
Very good article.
This is a really interesting article talking about hearing aids. But interesting since there is science that a starved Class AB amp sounded worse than a class D amp, or how we perceptible THD differs based upon frequency and content.
One of the references suggests 0.1% is audible for some types of distortion.
Very good article.
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Maybe I can offer something sort of worthwhile? I read thousands of audiograms during one of the most boring, mind-numbing portions of my career. These folks were young and in excellent condition. There were people who had thresholds maybe 3, 4, 5, dB better than the standard threshold for hearing at the most sensitive frequencies—the official standardized 0 db I guess. These folks were outliers for sure.
Not any kind of medical professional here. It’s just something I had to do and that’s what I saw.
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