[rubberbandage]

Honestly, depending on your age, that still could be “golden” — I’m 31, I’ve taken very good care of my hearing, I’m very acutely aware of audio subtleties, and my hearing range tops out around 16.5KHz. The so-called standard upper limit of 20KHz really only applies to young children, which is why CD audio being able to reproduce frequencies of 22.05KHz is already beyond ideal, and calls for 48! no, 96!, no, 192! (or higher) is literally insane for playback.

[lstamour]

Using a tone generator on my computer and a pair of headphones, I found that I couldn't easily hear past 15-ish myself, then I started turning up the volume, or playing with turning the volume all the way up, then all the way down. Using that technique, I was able to distinguish noise and high pitches up to 20.2khz or so. So I think from now on, if I hear some whine, I'm going to trust that it's there and not my imagination. Of course, it's also the definition of going deaf, I suppose, that I have to turn up the pitches to such a loud volume to hear them in the first place...