On 10/19/2013 2:36 PM, Al Lorona wrote:
When I was a kid 750 Hz was the most popular sidetone frequency. I have noticed a steady decrease in the consensus spot frequency over these 40 years. I don't know why.
I'll inject some science into the discussion based on my profession of electroacoustics. Human perception of sound is logarithmic, both with respect to amplitude and frequency (pitch). Another way of saying it is that our ability to separate two notes is a function of their percentage difference. For the same bandwidth in Hz, we have better discrimination between two note a lower frequency, because the difference is a higher percentage of the frequency. So it's easier to discriminate a 100 Hz difference at 450 Hz than at 750 Hz. That's one good reason to use a lower pitch.
Another is that for most (but not all) of us, hearing loss is greatest at higher frequencies, so we old farts tend to have somewhat better hearing at 450 Hz than at 1 kHz. That's not universal though -- those of us who were exposed to noise (usually at work) that's much louder at some frequency(ies) tend to develop notches in our hearing at those frequencies.
73, Jim K9YC ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
