At age 58, I can only hear below 11.5K.... Are slots a waste?

[robertbartsch]

I had a hearing test recently and that was bad news, I suppose. According to the doc, this is common for folk my age....

How much music material is above 11.5K, anyway? I have several systems with slot tweets and bullet tweets which may be a bit of a waste???

For those systems that have Ti framz / compression drivers, the addition of the slots/bullets seems to minimize the "sssssszzzzz" sound that I find a tad annoying with Ti....

Any thoughts?

Thanks....

[4343]

I think you answered your own question, in that it sounds better with than without...

Try turning the slots/bullets off and listen for awhile. (Leave the Low Pass filters on the Ti 'phrams too.) If you can tell when they are gone, turn 'em back on!

[BMWCCA]

I had a hearing test recently and that was bad news, I suppose. According to the doc, this is common for folk my age....

How much music material is above 11.5K, anyway? I have several systems with slot tweets and bullet tweets which may be a bit of a waste???
Last time I checked I didn't have much function beyond 12k but I can still tell the difference with the 2405 off versus on. It seems to add far more than just the UHF end of the spectrum would suggest. But then a "crossover" is not a hard cut-off, anyway. :dont-know:

[SEAWOLF97]

I think you answered your own question, in that it sounds better with than without...

Try turning the slots/bullets off and listen for awhile. (Leave the Low Pass filters on the Ti 'phrams too.) If you can tell when they are gone, turn 'em back on!

that seems like a good answer.

After 4 years in the Canoe Club, 3 feet from noisy Huey turbines and 20 feet from Phantoms in reburn mode , I should have NO hearing left (our ear protection was a joke)

BUT, at 65 ..on the sweeps, I can still discern 14-14.5 Khz

My guess is that even if you can't get above 11 +- , you can still feel those higher tones.

[audiomagnate]

that seems like a good answer.

After 4 years in the Canoe Club, 3 feet from noisy Huey turbines and 20 feet from Phantoms in reburn mode , I should have NO hearing left (our ear protection was a joke)

BUT, at 65 ..on the sweeps, I can still discern 14-14.5 Khz

My guess is that even if you can't get above 11 +- , you can still feel those higher tones.

2405's can put a LOT of HF energy into a room. Maybe if you jack up everything above 11K with eq you'll feel young again.

[Mr. Widget]

I had a hearing test recently and that was bad news, I suppose. According to the doc, this is common for folk my age....

How much music material is above 11.5K, anyway? I have several systems with slot tweets and bullet tweets which may be a bit of a waste? Hearing tests typically use pure sine wave "noise" at various frequencies to measure what you can and cannot hear. I am not sure that this correlates to the "real" world. Years ago when our late friend Zilch and I were measuring the ring radiators we discovered that Zilch couldn't hear test tones above about 9KHz or so... and it wasn't simply roll off. Even if I turned up 10KHz to ear bleeding levels... he couldn't hear it.

Interestingly even though he couldn't hear the 10KHz test tone he could hear or perceive differences in tweeter performance far above this frequency. I have speculated that complex musical signals are interpreted differently than simple pure tones. I would suggest that as we age our hearing certainly does lose high frequency resolving ability, but it doesn't necessarily prevent us from enjoying music and sound reproduction.


Widget

[fpitas]

If a tweeter distorts (and they all do to one extent or another), multiple high frequency tones will intermodulate to produce sum and difference frequencies. The difference frequencies are often at a few kHz; so, it's possible that tones above your hearing cutoff will produce tones within the frequency range you can hear.

[BeDome]

Hey, I agree with Widget, here.

Technically, I can not hear above 15K, but I sure as hell tell (feel?) the difference in slots and bullets and GAWD forbid NOT having them to listen to.

I honestly believe that as ones hearing begins to subside in the upper range, you begin to listen more deeply to high frequencies, maybe seeking them or something.

Slots are never a waste. They might be a blessing to you!