do you hear that?

November 13, 2007 3:47 PM

I hear things that other people don't. Not like voices, but more like a really painful high-pitched whine. So high that I've never heard anything like it. I've wondered for years what it was, and recently heard it at a shoe store and asked the employee - she noticed me flinch - and was told it was their burglar alarm, that the employee didn't hear it but knew that some customers had a problem with it.

Is that right? Is it come kind of ultra-sonic alarm or something? How does this work? I realize that other than avoid where I hear the noise (luckily not at work, although in the very high-security complex where I work we must have dozens or even hundreds of overlapping alarm systems of different types), there's not much I can do about it; I'm just wondering who else hears it and what causes it.

posted by luriete to technology (31 comments total)

(I mean, I've never heard "anything ELSE like it" - it's not so much hearing it, as feeling it in my ears and head.)
posted by luriete at 3:48 PM on November 13, 2007

Well, it's not just you. I hear it too, though I don't quite find it painful.
posted by Tomorrowful at 3:51 PM on November 13, 2007

I get the same thing with TVs, monitors, and other electronic gear. I can tell when they're on from a couple rooms away. You're not a freak. You probably are under 30. Hearing in these high ranges falls off with age.
posted by cosmicbandito at 3:53 PM on November 13, 2007

Its a noise that people who are less than 25 can hear. Often stores use it to discourage young people from loitering in their stores as the ability to hear it disappears as you age. I used to hear it all the time - from TVs and other electric devices. Rarely people older than 25 can hear it (I heard it until my mid thirities).
posted by zia at 3:54 PM on November 13, 2007

I am 37, perfect vision & hearing AFAIK but I'm glad to know it will disappear with age.
posted by luriete at 3:55 PM on November 13, 2007

I wonder if it's possible to get low-pass earplugs that only block out frequencies above, say, 13khz.
posted by aubilenon at 3:56 PM on November 13, 2007

Yeah, I used to hear that whine, and it clearly was things like dodgy flyback transformers in VDUs.

Unfortunately now I hear very similar whines most of the time, and it's definitely tinnitus.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 4:00 PM on November 13, 2007

Yeah, my first guess was tinnitus.
posted by lannanh at 4:16 PM on November 13, 2007

Television, light bulbs, all sorts of stuff - I hear the electronic whine on a daily basis.

The anti-theft device in our law school library is absolute, 100% murder. I have a hard time walking through there; it feels like a goddamn dog whistle must feel...
posted by Cycloptichorn at 4:17 PM on November 13, 2007

yeah, electronics i can hear but they don't bother me. sometimes when the air conditioning reverses pressure in the building i hear this weird disappearance of the usual white noise that nobody else does. what i'm talking about though is a MUCH higher pitched, MUCH louder - i mean, if it was really NOISE it would cover up everything else, but it seems higher pitch than noise and doesn't interfere with other sounds, it just interferes with my brain. Once it was so bad - at a police station when I was helping get a friend's car out of hock - I thought my nose & ears were going to bleed.
posted by luriete at 4:43 PM on November 13, 2007

Ya, you are hearing a tone, not noise. Just that it is a very high pitched tone.

It is probably an ultrasonic occupancy sensor, for lighting or an alarm. If so, I'm thinking the device is probably defective, though 25kHz is not too unusual, apparently..
posted by Chuckles at 5:06 PM on November 13, 2007

There are all kinds of things that emit painful high pitched whines, and I also am frequently amazed that nobody else seems to notice that the TV is on but not showing a channel. I'm 45, and it still bothers the hell out of me.

Some people just can hear high pitched sounds. Welcome to the club.
posted by flabdablet at 5:08 PM on November 13, 2007

You can tell if it's tinnitus if you cover your ears and still hear it. For me it's very, very similar to a disappearance of white noise (replaced by a high pitch whine) that doesn't really interfere with other, normal noise. Actually it's almost like there's a moment of real silence (no white noise at all) before my tinnitus starts.
posted by anaelith at 5:24 PM on November 13, 2007

I've heard the same kinds of things since I was a kid, and find them very painful. They're high frequency alarms or anything at a high frequency that many people don't hear. This likely just means you have very good hearing. If you haven't had your hearing checked, you might do so just to confirm. People who have perfect pitch commonly hear these frequencies as well, though I don't have perfect pitch (I am a musician, though). I actually am grateful for it.
posted by FlyByDay at 5:32 PM on November 13, 2007

maybe it was the mosquito ringtone, a very high pitched noise that most ppl over 25 can't hear because they've become deaf in that register.
teens use it as an in-class phone noise so their teachers can't hear it, and some stores use it as a teen repellent to keep teens from loitering.
i can kind of hear it, although to me it's more like an annoying feeling than a sound- if i was across the room & not paying attention i would probably miss it and just feel weird and tingly and not quite know why. my boyfriend and my cat can both hear it clearly and they both find it annoying.
here's a NYTimes article about the mosquito ringtone (with an audio feature that lets you see if you can hear it).
posted by twistofrhyme at 5:51 PM on November 13, 2007

Yes, you just have good hearing. Here in Japan, there are certain frequencies that that are played in some outdoor plazas, markets, and such to keep stray animals away. (Probably using something like this or this.)

I must have the hearing of a rat because I can't bear to be around these areas for more than a moment without scurrying away. Some of these "tones" are merely annoying but others make me want to curl up and die...
posted by QueSeraSera at 5:55 PM on November 13, 2007

I hear these, too, especially with the law school anti-theft things. I walk by extra fast.
Corrollary question: I also have pretty bad low-register hearing. Low male voices are very difficult for me. Are these things related? Does everyone have the same sized range they hear, but for some people it's just tuned higher than others? Do other people who hear this high pitched whine also have trouble hearing very low-pitched sounds?
posted by ohio at 6:24 PM on November 13, 2007

law school library. sorry.
posted by ohio at 6:24 PM on November 13, 2007

i have the same problem. drives me nuts.
posted by thinkingwoman at 6:28 PM on November 13, 2007

You can test the ranges of your tone perception - assuming your speakers/headphones are up to the job. I used Adobe Audition but you can generate tones using Audacity. I was surprised to find that my wife could hear a whole 2KHz above where for me even maximum volume tones vanished (except for a slight perception of pressure changes).
posted by meehawl at 7:03 PM on November 13, 2007

I'm pretty sure what you're hearing is an ultrasonic motion detector, like chuclkes mentioned. They usually look like little turrets sticking out of the ceiling that have screens on them, like this. They continuously emit a a sound and at the same time listen for an acho. When the frequency of the echo changes they know that the environment have changed and that something has moved.
posted by 517 at 7:36 PM on November 13, 2007

assuming your speakers/headphones are up to the job.

And your sound card.

Which brings back those mosquito tones.. They can't really be very high frequency, because cell phone speakers aren't capable of it.

And, sorry about the whole tone/noise thing.. I kind of thought better of making a comment about:

if it was really NOISE it would cover up everything else

Which is a good observation, but technically a little problematic. White noise (which is why I distinguished noise vs. tone) does cover things up, but it also makes things clearer (see dither vs. babble).
posted by Chuckles at 7:55 PM on November 13, 2007

Yep, just something high-pitched. I hear it all the damn time, and it gives me migraines.

*sigh* 26, and I can still hear CRTs refresh.
posted by ysabet at 8:28 PM on November 13, 2007

I'm 35 and partially deaf, BUT I can hear the ultra high frequencies very clear in my deaf ear, but not the hearing one. Interesting, eh?
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 8:47 PM on November 13, 2007

I have always been able to hear that kind of tone coming from TVs and CRTs.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 9:00 PM on November 13, 2007

Get yourself one of these. Problem solved, but your social life may suffer.
posted by jpmack at 9:58 PM on November 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

I second the idea that this is probably just especially acute hearing in the high pitched range. I too could hear when TVs or monitors were on from a way away when I was younger, but this has mostly gone now that I'm 36. An aspect of this acute hearing that I used to enjoy was when I went to an annual summer camp when in my late teens I could hear the bats as they flew over. I thought this was really cool and spent time outside trying to catch sight of them. Now I'm old and sad that I can't hear bats anymore. Sorry to hear you actually experience discomfort from this, but like others have said, you will probably lose this extra acuity with age.
posted by alicegoldie at 10:09 PM on November 13, 2007

You most likely do not have tinnitus. What you probably have is a mild form of hyperacusis.

I've written about it on AskMeFi before, here.

I have a more advanced form of it in my right ear - so imagine hearing those high frequencies so acutely that it essentially over-loads the auditory nerve and sends a loud static-scratching sound to your brain instead of the actual sound. That is what I have - furthermore I get the same reaction to any generally loud situation - from being on the subway to being in a bar to eating corn chips.

In my teens / young-twenties I saw a number of the leading audiologists in their field in the US, and tried everything from specialized hearing devices to some mild tranquilizer drugs used primarily for epileptics. At one point, one audiologist suggested that the more exposure the ear gets to sound, the worse the hearing will get, and likely the problem will reduce in severity as well. Ever since then, I've tried to go without my earplug more often than not, and while I still have the condition, its certainly more tolerable now than it was a few years ago.

So, essentially, my advice would be to struggle through it.
posted by allkindsoftime at 11:15 PM on November 13, 2007

Relief - I thought the hearing electronics thing was just me
posted by doppleradar at 5:43 AM on November 14, 2007

Just for the record -- hearing these high-frequency tones and having tinnitus are not mutually exclusive. I am "fortunate" to have both!
posted by dryad at 11:44 AM on November 14, 2007

I can still hear CRTs refresh.

Often what you are hearing is a composite beat formed by the interaction between different, otherwise inaudible frequencies. Similar to the way, unless the image has been processed, you can see CRTs refresh on film or TV with a different scan rate or under fluorescent lights.
posted by meehawl at 11:06 AM on November 15, 2007