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Effect of age on hearing Dac's differances.

31.172.30.3
Posted on July 14, 2012 at 20:55:35
Sumflow
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  Since: July 6, 2012

At what age can we no longer expect to hear a difference between Dac's?

How does the effect of age on hearing effect the perception of Dac’s comparative performance?

Ronnie you got that thing turned on, I see your fingers move but I can't hear a thing?

What's that Keith?
~~~
Hide it ~ nothing looks better..

 

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RE: Effect of age on hearing Dac's differances., posted on July 15, 2012 at 05:09:46
Dynobot
Audiophile

Posts: 2700
Location: USA
Joined: December 8, 2011
 In the world of Audio people who are older will likely have more experiences and therefore assume their hearing is better than those who do not.

I think that with time and experience people can train their senses to be more acute so that they can pick up on nuances in sound. However literally a younger person's ear will probably take in more data [able to physically hear more].

So maybe it all boils down to perception.
A younger person hears more but perceives less.
A older person who has trained themselves to pick up on audible differences in sound may actually hear less but perceive more than the young person.

With age, reflexes are supposed to decrease as well, but an older race car driver will likely have better reflexes than a younger untrained person.

my 0.02



Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋

 

RE: Effect of age on hearing Dac's differances., posted on July 15, 2012 at 07:40:50
Tony Lauck
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  Since: February 24, 2009
 Look at the situation with various sports. As an athlete gets older he becomes more experienced and skillful, but as his body ages he gets weaker and less coordinated. At some point age finally wins out over experience. The peak age is different for each sport and to a certain extent the individual.

The rate at which one's hearing deteriorates depends on how well one cares for one's ears. Going to loud concerts of amplified music without ear protection will accelerate the aging . It is possible to lose a lot of one's hearing in a single instant.


Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

RE: Effect of age on hearing Dac's differances., posted on July 15, 2012 at 08:19:42
steveassante@comcast.net
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 Keeping in the same vein of thought; I find myself pretty unhappy when I've forgotten to take some earplugs with me when I go out to see a new movie at the movie theatre. The balance of dialogue volume as opposed to background sounds & music is just plain ridiculous !!!

I find myself wondering if movies are being "sound engineered" to compensate for the hearing deficencies of the younger generation who seem to have been damaging their hearing on a daily basis for years.

 

RE: Effect of age on hearing Dac's differances., posted on July 15, 2012 at 08:23:23
Dynobot
Audiophile

Posts: 2700
Location: USA
Joined: December 8, 2011
 Look at the situation with various sports. As an athlete gets older he becomes more experienced and skillful, but as his body ages he gets weaker and less coordinated.

There is not a positive correlation between muscle loss and hearing loss however. Hearing involves many other factors besides muscles, such as bones, nerves, and water balance. So many things can affect hearing without having an external cause or having necessarily to do with age. For example a person who has kidney failure and is going through weekly dialysis might experience some hearing difficulty after dialysis due to a reduction of bodily fluids. This will also cause a common blood pressure drop. Medications such as Aspirin can also cause hearing loss.


At some point age finally wins out over experience.

Indeed age is the current that eventually takes us all down stream...can't fight it.

The rate at which one's hearing deteriorates depends on how well one cares for one's ears.

As I stated before the rate at one hearing deteriorates has multiple factors, one of which is protection from external noise. In addition to the various other aspects that can affect hearing, one can also include genetics to some extent.

However unlike physical strength hearing involves the sense of perception. So even if hearing is 100%, if the ability to discriminate sound is low perception of hearing sounds will be low. Much like a trained wine taster who has developed his sense of perception of taste. He has no more taste buds than anyone, however he can distinguish tastes better than most.



Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋

 

RE: Effect of age on hearing Dac's differances., posted on July 15, 2012 at 10:06:11
audioengr
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 Hearing acuity depends entirely on two things: 1) your genetics, 2)how well you cared for your eardrums in your lifetime

If you did not wear earplugs while mowing the lawn or worked on a Tarmac or were an artilleryman in the service, then you will probably not hear the HF very well etc..

DAC differences are best heard with no active preamp. Preamps add so much noise, compression and distortion that most differences are masked. I personally use a passive Transformer-based linestage because it has none of these drawbacks.

Also, it is extremely important to audition DACs using a very low jitter digital source, whether it is a computer interface or a CD Transport. What you will find is that a large number of DACs start to sound virtually identical when you do this. This can save you a LOT of money.

Steve N.

 

RE: Effect of age on hearing Dac's differances., posted on July 15, 2012 at 10:13:49
Dynobot
Audiophile

Posts: 2700
Location: USA
Joined: December 8, 2011
>>>>Also, it is extremely important to audition DACs using a very low jitter digital source,

I had a long discussion about the role of source components. Some are very firm that the source does not matter but the Dac plays the larger role. I like you think the source plays a large part of the equation.


Crap in = Crap out.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋

 

Tinnitus..., posted on July 15, 2012 at 12:21:18
Tromatic
Audiophile

Posts: 2427
Location: Portland
Joined: July 27, 2000
 My hearing is still good, but I do have tinnitus from noise exposure in the military. As much as I hate it, tinnitus is a very reliable tool for judging gear that has any hi-frequency nastiness.

 

I blame the iPod, posted on July 15, 2012 at 12:23:36
Tromatic
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Posts: 2427
Location: Portland
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 The iPod brought high volume bad sound to the masses. The entire chain from making the music to the listener is full of half-deaf people who don't know any better.

 

RE: I blame the iPod, posted on July 15, 2012 at 13:07:30
Dynobot
Audiophile

Posts: 2700
Location: USA
Joined: December 8, 2011
 Yep I agree, 20 years from now we will see a new generation of people requiring hearing aids.

Now is the time to invest in hearing aid companies!!


Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋

 

RE: Tinnitus..., posted on July 15, 2012 at 13:17:51
Dynobot
Audiophile

Posts: 2700
Location: USA
Joined: December 8, 2011
 >>>>As much as I hate it, tinnitus is a very reliable tool for judging gear that has any hi-frequency nastiness.



See good in bad. I like..



Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋

 

RE: Effect of age on hearing Dac's differances., posted on July 15, 2012 at 18:18:01
audioengr
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Location: Oregon
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 The anecdotal evidence seems to support it. When DAC reviews in Stereophile and TAS demonstrate that $1500 DACs sound virtually identical to $7000 DACs when driven from a low-jitter source, this is pretty compelling. This certainly will not be the case with ALL DACs, but there are quite a few good DACs that exhibit this effect.

steve N.

 

I agree, posted on July 16, 2012 at 09:55:21
sbrians
Audiophile

Posts: 968
Joined: March 4, 2002
 I did not know whether others had that happen. But it does seem that if there is high frequency noise that is otherwise inaudible, then it exacerbates the ringing. That was a major reason that I returned some non-Magnepan ribbon/hybrid speakers years ago (though one could argue that they just played the noise that was fed to them which could be true).

 

RE: I agree, posted on July 17, 2012 at 08:12:39
navman
Audiophile

Posts: 974
Location: U.S.A.
Joined: January 26, 2009
 Same here: when my tinnitus worses, I assumed it was high frequency noise setting it off.
navman

 

RE: I agree, posted on July 18, 2012 at 11:55:58
earwaxxer
Audiophile

Posts: 10
Location: Arizona
Joined: February 18, 2012
 Yep - from my experience at 55yrs of age, I can hear differences in just about any change in kit, and most tweaks. From what I understand, the cochlea looses high frequency response first. The 'sound' of a particular piece of equipment is composed of a very complex 'timber' of frequencies. A high frequency hearing degradation is only one piece to the hearing puzzle. The question really breaks down to how sensitive ones system is to conveying these sound qualities. One might call it 'resolution'.

 

Detail and reslolution.., posted on July 18, 2012 at 15:38:32
Tromatic
Audiophile

Posts: 2427
Location: Portland
Joined: July 27, 2000
 Systems that an "audiophile" describes as "detailed and resolving" usually drive me from the room. There is usually something badly wrong with the high frequencies.

 

RE: Detail and reslolution.., posted on July 18, 2012 at 16:33:14
AbeCollins
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Contributor
  Since: February 2, 2002
 " Systems that an "audiophile" describes as "detailed and resolving" usually drive me from the room. There is usually something badly wrong with the high frequencies."

Hmm, "detailed and resolving" means there's something wrong with the high frequencies?

Would you prefer "muddy and rolled off" ?

I'm not sure I understand your comment.

 

RE:" Detail and resolution drives me out of the room " LOL, posted on July 18, 2012 at 18:00:51
tmsorosk
Audiophile

Posts: 1412
Location: Sprucegrove Ab.
Joined: October 31, 2010
 Well put Abe.

 

RE: Effect of age on hearing Dac's differances., posted on July 19, 2012 at 05:35:01
twentysomething


 
Think many of you old farts are in denial. You've lost hearing acuity no matter how you embellish pretty. You're much closer to grub food/ash maker than you'll admit. Only question left is who gets your old audio junk for remember that s**t museum?

 

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