I can hear all the way up to 20k on your file; on the ringtone site I lose it at 17.4.
Odd but related: my CRT at work a few years back was emitting a really annoying high frequency squeal. No one in my office could hear it; I ended up having to round up the younger engineers to confirm it before management would agree to swapping out my monitor.
I could hear a faint high pitch when my speakers were turned up fairly loud. I doubt I’d notice it in real life.
M, 46.
That would fit - the human ear perceives sounds to be loudest at between 1 and 5KHz. (It’s not coincidental that we’ve evolved with a scream which hits such a pitch range!)
Male, 34. I can hear the samples clearly and painfully around 16.5 and 17 kHz. I just looked up the specs on my earphones and they only have good frequency response up to about that point. Odd, because they’re pretty good earphones. No idea what my notebook speakers will do, nominally, but I just get itchy teeth after that point. I perceive it, but it stops being annoying at higher than 17 kHz. Last time, with better speakers, I could hear up to 20 kHz. Guess either the speakers make a difference, or I’m losing my hearing.
Like a few other people with good hearing, electronics departments used to be painful when I was a kid. I could sometimes hear bats!
There are a couple of places in Ginza I can’t stand to be around because they apparently have those damn things up. I didn’t realize what that awful noise was until the previous thread on this subject. I don’t know if it’s Japanese stoicism or if no one else can hear it, but I usually have to plug my ears when a train is approaching because the rails scream at a really high pitch. Come to think of it, the noise of the trains might be part of the reason for my hearing being worse than a year or two ago.
I was in the office when I read about the mosquito tone. I’m 43, by the way. So I found an online tone generator and started clicking buttons. I couldn’t hear a thing in a frequency range I used to know an love. So I kept clicking. After a few minutes a young turk across the room shouted “What’s that bloody awful noise?”…
So I kept clicking 
Didn’t hear a thing and turned the speakers way up, but am skeptical because the dogs didn’t flick an ear, and they were sitting right by the speakers. So I am not sure it ran.
ETA: We just got good new speakers, too. I played some of the links in GorillaMan’s post and heard them ohsoclearly. I stopped at 12kz because it almost put my eardrums out. Didn’t look to see if the dogs noticed, but one is sleeping quite peaceably. Other is now in the other room, but I would have noticed if he’d run out.
I can hear it when played through my browser - just a vague static thing and not enough to annoy - but can’t hear it at all when downloaded and played.
On the mosquito site, I can hear the 8, 10 and 12khz and that’s it.
This is the only tone linked so far in this thread I’ve actually been able to hear, so I’m blaming the speakers (=whatever is built into a Mac Mini) rather than my ears.
On the mosquito ringtone page, I’m apparently exactly on schedule. I can hear the 50 and younger tone, but not the 49 and younger tone.
It’s actually sort of depressing – I wonder if that’s why some music I used to like doesn’t really do much for me anymore.
38, female, heard the one in the OP fine - and it was loud at half-volume on my speakers. I stopped at the 16kHz tone on that “Mosquito Ringtone” site.
Huh, using my (not famously hi fidelity) iPod earphones, I can hear up to 17.4K. So apparently part of the problem is not my geriatric ears, but the geriatric speakers on my Powerbook. Although for all I know, they’re playing the frequencies loud enough to drive a 17 year old insane – don’t have one of those handy to do the test.
Female, 41, I can hear the 17K, though it’s faint, and 17.4 and 17.5 are inaudible to me.
Male, 42. Bugged the hell out of me.
Although I do have a constant ringing in my ears. Combination of many teen years at rock concerts, blaring headphones for years and years of cannon fire.
I can’t hear it, but neither can my 19 year old or my 16 year old. Maybe there’s something wrong with my computer connection.
Female, 42 - I can hear it when I turn my speakers up - it’s the audio equivalent of biting on tinfoil. My cat didn’t like it, either.
Funny. Like others have said, I have mild tinnitus and I can hear it also. I’m 37.
I can sometimes hear this type of sound coming from a television, the last time I asked my wife if she heard it she thought that I was crazy or something.
Female, 32 - Can’t hear a thing. The last one I can hear on the Mosquito Ringtone site is 10khz (60 and older).:eek:
When tested in high school, I had better high-range hearing than any of my friends. Am guessing that’s no longer the case.
I’m, ummm, oh, shall we say, over 50; I had to turn up my tiny pc speakers all the way and then I heard it – an annoying, constant hum that would eventually (like, within five minutes) drive me up the wall.
I just confirmed that my wife can’t hear it but my (almost) 7 year old daughter and maybe my 18 month old son can.
Wow, so I’m not crazy.