12 Ultrasonic Ringtones For Your Nearly-Silent Listening Pleasure

@Bustout: From what I understand hearing loss does not have hard limits. You may be deaf on select frequencies and have perfect perception of ones higher or lower.

Is it odd that I can hear up to the 15.8 tone clearly, I can hear up to the 18.8 if I strain (could probably hear it better if the fan on this laptop wasn't so loud) but then I can hear the 21.1 loud and clear?

Why no pictures of the sounds?

I heard them all up to 21.1khz and I'm in my forties but then again I'm in a quiet room. I seriously doubt however that I would hear half of these if used as a ringtone out in public...

@ValkyrJunkie: That's amusing to me and I would second what you have said. While technology has improved over the years - televisions are notorious for generating this ultra-high frequency whine. Poorly designed electronics drive me nuts. I'm with you on this.

I've been using this trick for years. I work hard to take care of my ears and wear earplugs when doing sound intensive work such as vacuuming. As a result - my hearing is much better than my same-aged peers. A 17khz tone will punchright through any noise to my ears with no issue. I have heard that the I-Phone has trouble using this trick - anybody else observe that?

My hearing precipitously falls off from C to C#. I can still hear up to D, but above that I have to get really close to the tweeter. Too many rock shows close to the speakers, I suppose. Which is why I now carry reusable earplugs on my keychain.

Keep in mind that the quality of your listening equipment is going to matter as much as your own ears.

This PC I'm currently in front of with $20 speakers can't reproduce the tones above 17.7 kHz.

I know I can hear better than that and so testing in my home audio studio I could hear the 18.8 with no problem and barely hear the 19.9 with much concentration. This was through pro headphones with high impedance and therefore lower volume than typical headphones. I'm guessing if I had used my firewire audio interface and cranked the volume a bit instead of using my MacBook Pro's standard line-out, I could heard the 19.9 kHz without much straining.

FYI, I'm 31. As a musician, I'm thankful I still have my full range of hearing despite frequenting loud rock shows.

I imagine most typical cell phones are only going to be able to reproduce the 16.6 kHz or 17.7 kHz via their internal speakers. Also, the volume of tones on the linked page seem kind of low, I have not viewed any of the waveforms nor viewed through any testing equipment but I doubt they are normalized.

Edit: just noticed they are compressed mp3s for download so that probably explains why the higher tones tend to sound lower in volume.

spittingangels

I'm 25 and I was able to hear the 21.1kHz sound, which I find a little surprising since I didn't think humans could hear past 20kHz, but I guess that's a soft number.

Just last week some co-workers and I found a website with a similar test and it maxed out at 18kHz which I could hear just find. The next youngest co-worker was 29 and couldn't hear over 15kHz. While I'm pretty protective of my hearing (don't listen to music loudly), being able to hear that high is actually more of a curse. I can usually hear the electrical whine of different electronics, and the high-pitched sound the PSU in my home server makes bugs the hell out of me.

ValkyrJunkie

@Lance eagles3strong: I think that comic must have been done by an old person.

Silly old people and their resistance to new things.

I guess I'm "lucky". At 29 I can still hear the one at the bottom (not counting the fake one). Might have something to do with that I've never had my ears destroyed by concerts like all the cool kids.

sneakypoo

I only got to B: 15.8kHz. I'm 26. My friend of the same age was able to hear up to D: 18.8kHz. I guess that car accident messed up my hearing more than I thought.
I'm just curious, older giz commenters, who is the oldest commenter that can hear the highest frequency.

Digo

@Scotland: I got as low as 14.9khz. I'm sure at 20 I'm meant to be able to hear a lot lower.
Then again when the science teacher brought out he oscilloscope I was one of the last to put my hands up when you hear something. These should be fun to piss off all my housemates, I think I'll give them a shot.

"Choose the highest pitch tone that you could hear from the list below and click the 'Get result now' button "
(Scotland clicks on the bottom one, 22.4kHz)
...
"You are a liar
You claimed to be able to hear a tone that contained absolutely no sound!"

Scotland

@Lance eagles3strong: Amen!

Older fluorescent bulbs and TV's drive me nuts, anyways, no way I'd want my phone to do it too.

That should tell you how I feel about this idea.

My bad. this links to the lifehacker article where I posted this same comic.