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Ultrasonic investigations in shopping centres

windytan.com

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Re: Ultrasonic investigations in shopping centres

#61
post #8
post #7

No mention of how bad this must be for dogs and other animals that can hear better than humans.

I always wondered the same about ultrasonic parking/proximity sensors on cars.

induction stovetops create extremely loud high pitched noises, some get up to 100+ decibels. You can't "hear" it but at higher heat levels you can definitely "feel" it in your ears.

Re: Ultrasonic investigations in shopping centres

#62

Totally speculative territory, but I’ve had headaches when going to a shopping center since I was a kid. It’s infallible, one to two hours and my head is exploding. I’ve always attributed it to the noise, crowds and sensory overload but it never happens elsewhere. Could it be?

Smell, too. Clothes stores always smelled horrible to me and almost always gave me a headache.

Re: Ultrasonic investigations in shopping centres

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 30 with mild tinnitus and listen to music too loud but I can still hear CRT whine too, go figure.

Wait, people regularly just don’t hear it?

You'll usually stop hearing the CRT whine in your 20s, 30s if you're lucky. It's at nearly 16KHz and the highest frequency you can hear always drops as you age.

Of course, these days people also regularly don't hear it since CRTs are nearly all gone.

Re: Ultrasonic investigations in shopping centres

#64
From the description of the product, I think the intention is that the tone is received electrically at the end of a cable run, so receipt of the tone indicates continuity of the speaker cabling. This high frequency has been chosen to ensure that it is low enough to be amplified and transmitted along with the audio content, and is high enough to be attenuated by the tweeters (so little energy is transmitted), and high enough in frequency so that whatever is emitted by the tweeters will be inaudible.

If this is the case, it would sound like there is no need to encode any information on the signal, just it's presence is enough to test the wiring is intact. I'm assuming this is so that if the PA is required for, say, an emergency broadcast, it is fit for purpose.

The presence of a <20Khz signal would imply that it was found that in whatever installation was being used that the bandwidth of the amplifiers or some other filter was attenuating the test tone too much to be received properly, so this bodge was put in place.

Re: Ultrasonic investigations in shopping centres

#65
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

even a headphone plugged in wrong is a good enough sensor to start. when it gets bad you start looking at designing your own ribbon elements and considering active pickups. when it gets worse you may find yourself deeply concerned about ADC and clock skew.

It doesn't matter what your microphone can do, because your sound card does the filtering and digitization.

it might; depending on your goals: microphones color the sound and their limits can be as valuable as their capabilities, in the right context.

see the mics that harmonica players lust after. "You traded the Cadillac for a microphone? ... I can see that."

I believe many sound chips still have ways around any pee-processing they may apply, might check the folks using them for low rate oscilloscope inputs

Re: Ultrasonic investigations in shopping centres

#68
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, people regularly just don’t hear it?

You'll usually stop hearing the CRT whine in your 20s, 30s if you're lucky. It's at nearly 16KHz and the highest frequency you can hear always drops as you age. Of course, these days people also regularly don't hear it since CRTs are nearly all gone.

37 here. Definitely still hear if the CRT is on. I have a few 8bits.

Re: Ultrasonic investigations in shopping centres

#69

I live in Japan, Tokyo, and sometimes I come across these annoying/distracting high-pitched noises even in residential areas. They are a nuisance for bypassers too, if you've got ears young enough. But the residential areas don't have any problem with loitering youngsters, so I keep wondering if the noise is targeted against pests or wild animals. This article made me think if I should seriously start measuring the v…

There are lots of "rat deterrant" devices which emit varying tones 15-20 kHz. they often emit chirps or frequency sweeps. Sometimes always-on, sometimes with an IR sensor (in battery powered versions).

Re: Ultrasonic investigations in shopping centres

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't speak for Tokyo, but there are streets in my American suburban neighborhood I avoid because of (presumably) animal-deterrent noises. I'm also 40, and surprisingly can still hear them - and an audiologist had my ears tested last month, and said my hearing is excellent for my age. Which is a bummer when I have to cycle around several blocks to avoid hearing the squeaks that are physically painful to my ears.

> squeaks that are physically painful Those may be covered under loud noise regulations, if the official measuring machinery has the cutoff frequency set high enough (no reason why not).

Yeah, maybe. But the hassle of trying to convince the town this house is in - which isn't my town - to do something about it is significantly more difficult than just riding my bike around the place.
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