Can you (still) hear line whistle?

[Nuvistor]

I am very lucky from these comments about tinnitus, I have high frequency loss but no tinnitus, I do not like loud music though, it hurts my ears.

[Graham G3ZVT]

Originally Posted by Panrock

Yes, I think there's a lot of truth in this. For if you make up for this hf loss with a hearing amplifier whose response is narrowly restricted to the 'tinnitus band', this can greatly improve matters.

There is a full discussion on my tinnitus page HERE. Incidentally, the products depicted are no longer for sale.

Fascinating stuff Steve and I will find some time to do it justice in the next couple of days, but one thing I'd like to mention here and now

"My tinnitus worsens with:
Forcing my jaw forward."

I don't think I've seen that in print before, but that's exactly what I noticed as a child, perhaps up until my early 30s. Jaw forward with isometric contraction applied would set it off or worsen it.

These days it makes absolutely no difference. It's as if any volume control I once had, is now stuck at max.

[dtvmcdonald]

When I was 20 I could easily hear to 23 kHz. 15734Hz drove me crazy, and I disliked a bad
stereo's 19 kHz. I stopped being bothered by 15734 when I was about 60. Now at 73 I can hear
to 13.5 kHz in both ears, but it takes lots of power above about 10 kHz in the right one,
above 12.5 in the left. But I don't notice cutting off music at about 8 or 9 kHz. There is a good
side to that ... I'm not bothered as much by hiss. As a teenager, pre-Dolby, it drove me crazy.

My Marconi 702 does not make a 10 kHz whistle, which I verified with
two quality mikes and Audacity. With no flyback and that teensy yoke, I would
not have expected it to.

For many years after a virus attack on my ears I suffered tinnitus, but that has
receded to not quite zero, but close. It also dropped slowly in frequency.

[greg_simons]

Regret I've developed menieres disease and my hearing is wiped out, did used to have the ability to hear 15.625khz until my mid fifties.
greg.

[retroteck]

I started with HF tinnitus in my left ear in mid 30's, (405 line transformer sound) followed by a noticeable
HF hearing loss in the same ear about 3 months later.
HF hearing worsened over the years, (both sides) and now have a condition related to Meniers Disease
which came on suddenly after dozing off on the couch which has left me with fluctuating low frequency
loss in right ear and distortion in the treble. Can just hear 4KHz in 'best' ear if my head is at the right angle.
Its interesting that my tinnitus frequency, which has always remained the same, is way above any frequencies
that I can now hear.
Did a sweep test on the pc and above about 1.5KHz there are lots of spot frequencies that I can't hear,
although not noticeable wearing headphones, this might partially account for the distortion, which is for me
the worst part of it.
A man came to service my boiler in the kitchen a couple of years ago whilst I had a KB RV20 out of its case
for restoration and switched on in the lounge, he couldn't bear the line whistle but of course it was totally
inaudible to me, so I had to switch it off for the duration of his visit.

Rod

[mark pirate]

Friends of mine run a hearing aid business and offered me a free test last year,
I was amazed how much high frequency hearing I had lost, upper limit was 12.5khz. Apparently quite normal for my age (55).
I can hear 405 line whistle, or maybe just the harmonics of it, 625 lines is now not audible.

I have to laugh at a pal of mine, a real audiophool who spends a fortune on his setup, seems pointless to me to hark on how good the frequency response is when his hearing is probably worse than mine!

Mark

[dsergeant]

I couldn't hear 15,625 in my teens. Nowadays with age related hearing loss there is no way, and the hearing aids which I use only correct to 8kHz anyway. When I repaired CRT TVs it was frustrating when the customer told me there was a loud whistle coming out of a set when I of course could hear absolutely nothing.

[Boom]

I get awful tinnitus, it's been driving me up the wall all weekend. I have a programme on my Iphone which has various coloured noise. I find it helps and varies which colour noise does the job best day by day.

I just tested my hearing and was fairly happy to see that at pushing 70 I can still hear 13kHz. I was surprised though to note that at the low end I can't hear a sine wave under 30Hz.

[toshiba tony]

What a topic this has turned out to be. Including the guy who has discovered shoving his jaw forward makes it worse. I'm the same. I got tinnitus after having encephalitis, that's no fun. I self medicated, after becoming despondent with the NHS, when days are bad I wear bluetooth headphones playing white noise to mask it, judging by the posters on here tinnitus seems a bigger issue than I though.

[Refugee]

It may be related to working in workshops with banks of TVs being soak tested.
Telephone engineers used to get it from the noise caused by the selectors clunking round.

[G8UWM-MildMartin]

Interesting thread; thanks all.
My tinnitus doesn't change much with jaw movement, but puttting a hand on my head and moving the scalp forward really brings it up.

[toshiba tony]

This post has attracted great interest, my top end has always been reasonable, it was after contracting encephalitis I got tinnitus, at least I don't get voices in my head!

[JohnBHanson]

In my 40s I could hear the line whistle of cash point machines from across the street - they were CRT based but I don't know what frequency they were (I suspect 18-19kHz).

Now I can hear 15.625 sometimes, but I don't know for sure again because of the tinnitus.

When I was young (eg teenager) my hearing top was about 28kHz so I have lost the top octave. I remember some things were really loud -

1. Rolls Royce cars really awful to be in one (Only a test drive with my parents and I hated it). My parents could not understand why.

2. Marks and Spencer - really loud and I don't know what it was, looking back my best guess was the air conditioning. I would not enter the shop. As a young child I would immediately scream if taken into the shop.

3. When I was visiting my parents one weekend from university I told my parent I could hear bats. It was raining and my coat was wet so they put it into the airing cupboard. When it came out dry the next morning there was a dead bat in the pocket.

4. All cars sounded very different - and I could identify friends cars by sound alone when I was younger. Even the same make gave some variation. I have since had the opportunity to play with a bat detector and it is amazing how noisy some things are. That is actually how I found out that my problem with Rolls Royces was real!.

I do miss the top - music has very much lost its sing, but I like classical more now.

[Peter.N.]

That's interesting and would figure, the frequency of my tinnitus is around that at which my hearing stops. As I said I can hear 10kcs but only at an advanced volume level, my 'ear gain' has definitely dropped off at around and above that frequency.

Peter

[Tazman1966]

At the ripe old age of 51, 10125kHz is still loud and clear but I can only just hear 15625kHz. Pretty much as others have said, even 15625kHz was easily audible to me in younger years. As I walked up to a house, I could easily tell if the television was on or not!

Tas

[sexton_mallard]

At 48 this level of hearing is about the same for me. I can still hear 15625kc/s but only on larger 20inch plus CRT sets at close quarters. I was pleased to still hear the line whistle from a 20inch Panasonic CRT TV I rescued some time ago.

As a kid I'm certain I could hear bats in the sky with their distinctive bleeping echolocation but that dropped off on my teens.

[Viewmaster]

Cannot hear that nostalgic 405 noise anymore.
But I can still smell any smoke that comes from them!

[rogerdup]

A burning LOPT ?

[AJSmith625]

I am 63 years old now and have had tinnitus for the last 16 years, about the same time has being diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. Like others have said it manifests itself as a high pitched whistle again about 15kHz. To start with it wasn't there all the while but is now almost permanent. I have just done a couple of independant hearing tests on Youtube, playing through a pair of Argus/Bush computer speakers with specification up to 20kHz, with the volume set about half way. This is the normal setting I have for playing music and on both tests I am losing sound at about 11kHz. This is about the same as this time last year when I did a similar test.

Alan.

[ukcol]

I was very surprised to find that I can still hear a 12.5kHz sine wave generated by Audacity. It is perceived, unsurprisingly, at a much lower level than 1kHz at the same volume settings and is completely absent at 13kHz. ! am 71 years old.