my ears are plugged up right now but I can still hear the 15k tone. When the infection cleares up I'm pretty certain I could hear the 17k tone.
I'm 59
Both of my ears ( probably same as everyone here) have different response curves at various frequencies. My room is tuned pretty well and I have decent speakers. When I listen to a sine wave sweep from 20-20, I hear sounds droppng out in different ears in certain areas. It's kind of a trip to listen to that and hear that. It sounds liek someone is twisting an EQ knob and panning it left and right, back and forth at a couople of frequencies.
Joe Perry pretty much damaged my left ear. I was placing a mic in front of his gtr stacks before sound check. He comes out and decides to test his gtr, not realizing the gtr tech had not set his volume, which all were at 11. Happens in handling. I didn’t notice he had come out or I’d step back. Hit a cord and I thought someone kicked me in the left ear. I stood up wanting to kick ars. He just turns around, see the look on my face and said, “I’m really sorry”. He was still whacked from the night before so I just kinda gave him that look and finished.
My hearing balanced out as my right ear diminished a little. Ha!
My high-end starts dipping after 12k. My ears feel something but I my brain doesn’t hear it.
I cut 12k and above on a parametric eq on any mic channel.
Even if you can’t hear those well there is a war between the ear and brain to block out irritant noises. It can irritate people even if they don’t know why they feel just a touch edgy. Compressed MP3s in ear buds have similar effect.
I’ll also dip out 1.6k on every vocal mic for the same reason, its that am radio sound that makes a mic sound electrified. It should never sound like its passing through wire. 1.6k is an irritant freq.
In my case I am lower in all freqs across the board, I still hear flat.