[Bell Historians] Hearing tests - more help needed

[Frank King]

Dear Bill,

When you arranged your first test last
autumn I was at peak overload and left
it on one side.  That wasn't the only
reason.  I have cloth ears and any
results from me would have been noise.

That said, I am not quite so overloaded
this time round and thought I would at
least have a go to see what kind of
tests you had set up.  I still had every
intention of being a non-submitter.

Alas, either I have even worse ears than
I thought (distinctly possible) or my
set-up isn't right...

Everything seemed to down-load OK but
when I tried the test, all 15 test
sounds and all 16 reference sounds
were indistinguishable.

There is no clue in your writing as to
what the range from A to P is, except
that A is flatter than P.

If they are about an octave apart, then
even I should be able to detect a range
in between!  Maybe though, you really
are looking for truly musical ears and
P is only a fraction of a tone sharper
than A?

I tried your suggestion of opening
Windows Media Player.  I duly went
Tools | Options but the tab dialogue
box which opened is different from
yours.  I don't have a File Types
tab.

Maybe that doesn't matter.  I can
readily run wav files so I tried
your Test Sound 1 and Test Sound 2
links and duly got two sounds.

Again they sounded identical but not
like the 15+16 that I had listened to
before.

Does any of this make any kind of
sense?

Incidentally, I very much appreciated
your tutorial in Caius when you visited
Cambridge and lapped up every word you
said.

All the best

Frank King