Poll: Am I a freak? (re: Televisions)

[Hap2]

Seems to happen only with CRT TVs, or they are the loudest. Ought to experiment with the LCD TVs one of these days.

 

[gl1koz3]

LCDs feel like a heater directed at you. While CRTs have this sound. Nothing that special.

 

[JoJo]

I can't hear them but that's probably down to my bad hearing, I had multiple serious ear infections as a child. On the upside I can't hear those really high-pitched mostquito tones that supposedly only young people can hear!

 

[Mechsoap]

yeah, it does this white noise kinda, so its easy for me to hear

 

[CheesusCrust]

All the time, I used to walk past houses and know if they had a tv on, though I dont seem to detect it as much anymore.

 

[Criquefreak]

TVs, VCRs, DVD players, game systems, computers, lighting fixtures, air conditioning systems, distant electrical towers, iPods and cell phones (sometimes), most any active electrical device tends to manage some small part of my attention. I find it very comforting, personally.

Spent a few nights up in the mountains and forest where I became very paranoid and restless due to the lack of such background sounds, once even becoming unable to sleep due to it being an effectively alien environment.

 

[The Shade]

Yes, I've always been able to tell if there's a TV on somewhere in the building. It could be on the far side of the house, or two floors below me, but I can still hear it. Sometimes even LCD TVs, though they're much quieter.

I guess I'll just have to go to more rock concerts.

I have a similar quirk. I can always tell when the telephone is about to ring. It's just a weird feeling I get. I'll turn, look at my wife, and say "It's for you". She gives me a strange look, then it rings. For me, it's just like a *click* and I just suddenly know, without a doubt, it's going to ring. It's not handy or anything, just an odd little quirk.

I can almost do this. I seem to have an uncanny knack for picking up my phone just before it rings or I receive a text message. It won't be for any particular reason, but I just pick up my phone to fidget with it. Then BAM! Gratification.

 

[manythings]

I don't know how to describe this, so just bear with me.

Let's say there's a room with a TV in it, the TV is on but the volume is muted or at least so low you can't hear it. Can you walk past that room and still KNOW the TV is on, without looking in?

It's like this extremely high-pitched hum or buzz or something, but I've always been able to tell if there was a TV on somewhere nearby, even if there was no sound.

I'd always assumed everyone could "feel" that, but only recently people are telling me they've never heard of this. Like, they could be standing right in front of a TV that was on but had no sound or picture, and they swore it wasn't on.

If you're like me you have a thing called Tinnetus. If it is one of the old kind of TVs with a cathode ray tube not the new Plasma screen tvs. If there is static on the screen can you hear it? Even if you are in a different part of the house? Do you usually have a high pitched tone ringing in your ears everywhere?

Tinnetus is, as I understand it, caused by sections of your hearing range are broken or dead but your brain doesn't know it so it keeps tuning in harder and harder on thosse sections trying to pick out the noises. It results in one or several tones that permeate the world but there are in your own head. Sometimes it is ccaused by your environment but in my case it is a pretty widespread family trait.

I've always seen it as red/green colour blindness if you never had to tell the difference between red and green. No one ever said it wasn't normal so I only realised what I was hearing was unnatural when I figured out I had tinnetus.

Yes, I've always been able to tell if there's a TV on somewhere in the building. It could be on the far side of the house, or two floors below me, but I can still hear it. Sometimes even LCD TVs, though they're much quieter.

I guess I'll just have to go to more rock concerts.

I have a similar quirk. I can always tell when the telephone is about to ring. It's just a weird feeling I get. I'll turn, look at my wife, and say "It's for you". She gives me a strange look, then it rings. For me, it's just like a *click* and I just suddenly know, without a doubt, it's going to ring. It's not handy or anything, just an odd little quirk.

I can almost do this. I seem to have an uncanny knack for picking up my phone just before it rings or I receive a text message. It won't be for any particular reason, but I just pick up my phone to fidget with it. Then BAM! Gratification.

I had the exact same thing with my first mobile phone, there was a sort of click and I would reach for my phone before it even said I had a message or call.

 

[antidonkey]

I could always tell when the old CRT style TVs were on. I could hear the high pitch hum they made. Not so much with LCD TV but mine is 46" and lights up the entire room. Bit of a give away there.

So......you're not a freak. Even if you were, I doubt people would fear your amazing powers of being able to tell when the Tv in the other room is on.

 

[Mycologist]

The noise often heard from CRT TVs is the high frequency whine from the high voltage transformer used for the tube. Tends to be worse with older TVs as the ferrite material for the transformer gets weaker and so it's more likely that you'll hear it whining with the strain. You're probably less likely to hear a sound with LCD TVs, as while they still use high frequency transformers, they don't need the high voltage that a CRT needs, so the primaries don't have as much current, and so are less likely to make the ferrite whine.

Electro-nerd babbling over...

 

[rockyoumonkeys]

I don't know how to describe this, so just bear with me.

Let's say there's a room with a TV in it, the TV is on but the volume is muted or at least so low you can't hear it. Can you walk past that room and still KNOW the TV is on, without looking in?

It's like this extremely high-pitched hum or buzz or something, but I've always been able to tell if there was a TV on somewhere nearby, even if there was no sound.

I'd always assumed everyone could "feel" that, but only recently people are telling me they've never heard of this. Like, they could be standing right in front of a TV that was on but had no sound or picture, and they swore it wasn't on.

If you're like me you have a thing called Tinnetus. If it is one of the old kind of TVs with a cathode ray tube not the new Plasma screen tvs. If there is static on the screen can you hear it? Even if you are in a different part of the house? Do you usually have a high pitched tone ringing in your ears everywhere?

It's old TVs, sure, but also LCD tvs as well. Don't know if it does it or not with plasmas, as I've never had one or paid much attention when I was around one.


It's not Tinnetus though, because there's no constant ringing in my ears.

 

[DemonicVixen]

Ya, I can hear it too...

So your a normal person with a decent sense of hearing...

Indeed. And if you couldnt hear it, you might be loosing your hearing =D (which sadly im loosing mine. Damn headphones enticing me to listen to music loudly >.> )

 

[Arionis]

*nods*

Yup. (I can tell too, not that you're a freak)

(though you could be, I don't know you, but hey, some chicks dig freaks.)

(Or guys, whatever you're into)

*shrug*

 

[Wicky_42]

Yep, can hear that ring too - I think it's transistor whine or something. I also have occasional mild tinnetus, which can sound remarkably similar, amusingly enough.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

If you have decent hearing, you can hear it. As you age you're less likely to.

http://listverse.com/2008/02/29/top-10-incredible-sound-illusions/

Scroll right down to the bottom.

Interesting, but as I'm WELL over 20, it just puts me back in the "freak" category!

EDIT: And after actually listening to that last clip, I didn't hear anything at all, so apparently I've "lost" it. But that also means it's not the same as the TV thing.

Also, the virtual barbershop was pretty much the most awesome thing I've ever heard.

I'm also well over 20, but I can still hear the "mosquito" tone they use for stuff like that. I think generally they use 17.4 kHz, not 18 kHz, and I know I can definitely still hear that. It's quieter than it used to be, and I'm not sure how much higher than that I can still make stuff out, but damn is it irritating.

One thing I did notice when testing whether I could hear stuff like that or not is that it actually made a pretty big difference what I was playing it back on. Some particularly crappy speakers or headphones have a relatively narrow range of frequencies they can reproduce well (or at all, in some cases), and it was much more noticeable with some I tried than others. The fairly worthless ones built into the old computer I checked with several months ago made it nearly inaudible. I think the specs listed for them said 160-16k or something sad like that. With my fancy headphones that do 20-20k, it was easy to hear.

Anyway, yes, CRTs really do have an irritating high-pitched whine, especially some cheaper/older ones. They still annoy me when I'm in a quiet room with them. When I was younger and could hear high-pitched sounds even better, I could tell when the TV downstairs at the other end of the house was on from my bedroom, though. That was pretty obnoxious... Haven't noticed it too much with other types of displays, but some LCDs have cheap electronics, and the ballast for the fluorescent backlight hums.

What's really driving me nuts lately is that I can hear the power throttling circuitry in my laptop, which makes a similar noise when it's in certain states but not others. It's always something.

 

[spartan231490]

not all tv's make that sound but yes, I'v heard it before, usually when i'm behind the tv. makes me want to kick the screen in.

 

[ToxinArrow]

You lose it with age OP. Around 25 or so.

My friend had a high pitched ring like that on his phone, so he could get texts in class without the teacher bitching at him for his phone going off.

 

[Zhukov]

I had always assumed that everyone could hear that.

I remember once I was sitting in the living room with several friends. The TV turned on by itself (I have no idea why) but there was no picture or sound. All four of us looked up at the TV simultaneously.

 

[Technocrat]

The noise often heard from CRT TVs is the high frequency whine from the high voltage transformer used for the tube. Tends to be worse with older TVs as the ferrite material for the transformer gets weaker and so it's more likely that you'll hear it whining with the strain. You're probably less likely to hear a sound with LCD TVs, as while they still use high frequency transformers, they don't need the high voltage that a CRT needs, so the primaries don't have as much current, and so are less likely to make the ferrite whine.

Electro-nerd babbling over...

I was totally just about to say this.