Subject: Re: Why is high high? From: Andrew Vermiglio <avermiglio(at)HEI.ORG> Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 06:58:44 -0700Jim Stevenson wrote:> > And why do high freqencies produce far more pain than low freqs of the same > energy? Eliot Handelman wrote: Jim, from the point of view of pain, according to Gavreau (if that's his name) really loud infrasound is unbeatable. It includes effects like nausea and vomiting. On the other hand my friend Maryanne Amacher, a sound artist, works with extremely intense very high pitched sounds which I, and many others, are able to adjust to strikingly quickly with no pain and, to my knowledge, no hearing loss. We once tested our upper ranges and both came out at top around 15.5, unlike many musicians who work with loud but lower-pitched sounds. Eliot, Have you actually measured your hearing thresholds before and after exposure to the "extremely intense very high pitched sounds"? The absence of pain is a poor indicator of cochlear damage due to loud sounds. Andy Vermiglio McGill is running a new version of LISTSERV (1.8c on Windows NT). Information is available on the WEB at http://www.mcgill.ca/cc/listserv