Hearing/Deafness test CDs

Posted by: P on 18 November 2000

I was shopping for some new music CDs this morning and ended up at a website stocking a couple of interesting sounding test discs.

Apparently these things will run a test on your hearing to determine which frequencies you can and can't hear and also determine how responsive your CD Player is.

I'm sort of tempted and would appreciate any thoughts or experiences.

Found them at www.vivante.co.uk/acc-8.html

Cheers P.
Edit
They also have a very good selection of CD's Gold,HDCD etc and a load of 180gm vinyl - oh dear this could be a very expensive day

[This message was edited by Pierre on SATURDAY 18 November 2000 at 12:46.]

Posted on: 18 November 2000 by Arun Mehan

Pierre, first of all I hope you were planning to conduct the hearing tests via headphones. If you were planning to play the CD through your speakers you wouldn't have very good results with all the possible room interactions.

But more importantly, hearing tests should be conducted by a trained professional. People do go to school for this profession. It's very difficult to this sort of test to yourself. For example, if you're playing a 10 Hz tone that you know your CD player is pushing through your system, you might see your woofers moving (or feel the headphones vibrating) and convnince yourself that you can hear this tone even though you know that human ears can't detect such a low tone.

Oh and most CD players will play down to 2 Hz but does that mean your preamp does too? I think the CD will actually tell you how responsive your preamp and speakers are, not your CD player.

Basically I'm trying to say forget it or you'll drive yourself crazy!

Posted on: 18 November 2000 by Martin Payne

If you play pure tones at any sort of volume through your speakers for an extended period you will probably cause damage to them.

Headphone only, I reckon, and even then I'd be cautious.

cheers, Martin