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Comment by concerned_ | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately, rather than tinnitus I have misophonia, and I can hear ice melting. No treatment or cure. But I would bet at least some cases of subjective tinnitus are actually people who have super hearing abilities.

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well, I used to have super hearing. Had a hard time being around CRT displays because the flyback transformers were really really loud. Now, with age, I get a phantom limb tone of 16KHz. [1]

Coincidentally, the peak notch in the OP was the 1st subharmonic of that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyback_transformer

Does not being able to be around CRT displays because of the noise make qualify one as having super hearing? Pretty sure a good percentage of the population have that problem

Was tested while attending an electronic music class. Professor displayed everyone's result, so we could compare. His chart was the worst, as a cautionary tale. Too many live performance in front of the PA.

This is very common though, isn't it? Every child can hear a tube TV running when muted. Dog whistles too and all. And that's not even at the top of kids hearing range.

Yes, that's normal hearing for a child.

By chance - not ice cubes in a glass of water making a hissing sound?

No the slight crackling. Also even though I live in a detached house, I hear my neighbors morning alarms going off. One time I had to walk into the warehouse of a local newspaper because they bought new forklifts that made a high pitch sound when they were in reverse, and the guys riding the forklifts had ear protection and it was vibrating the windows of my apt a half mile away. They turned the sound off only after weeks of calling the police.

I used to play in a symphony orchestra as a professional and I suspect that studying my whole life to listen to a pin drop has led me into this place.

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