I was plagued by the Hum for years. At times it became astonishingly loud. But I was able (eventually) to figure it out.
Short version: I made many attempts to track it down. Used low frequency Microphones, filters, amplifiers, etc, as well as PC Spectrogram programs to try and and visualise and record it. Visited many nearby industries etc to try and find it. But none of my attempts did any good.
As I'm a Radio Engineer I spent ages experimenting with VLF Receivers, Spectrum Analysers, etc.
One thing I noticed however was that the Hum was much worse when I was living in a quiet rural area.
One night however, I noticed that I could affect the hum by doing the swallow maneuver that divers use to equalise ear pressure. I slowly came to understand that my Hum was an internally generated sound.
Apparently there are various possible mechanisms: The simplest is blood flow near the ear. But also the tiny hairs in the ear canal actually have tiny muscles which cause feed-back or "regeneration" to make our ears more sensitive, and the frequency response of each hair cell much sharper. However at times, this regeneration can slip over into actual Oscillation.
This ability of the ear to actually generate sounds is well documented. It can actually be loud enough for a Doctor or a partner to hear. It's called Objective tinnitus.
In my case, the Hum eventually disappeared and has never returned. I suspect that it coincided with a change in blood pressure medication, but I can't be sure.
Looking back, I would suggest that it may be worth trying to amplify the sounds via a set of high-quality earphones and appropriate filters, etc, using the headphones as microphones.
This reminds me of the story of how composer John Cage was inspired to write his piece 4′33″ [1]:
'In 1951, Cage visited the anechoic chamber at Harvard University. An anechoic chamber is a room designed in such a way that the walls, ceiling and floor absorb all sounds made in the room, rather than reflecting them as echoes. Such a chamber is also externally sound-proofed. Cage entered the chamber expecting to hear silence, but he wrote later, "I heard two sounds, one high and one low. When I described them to the engineer in charge, he informed me that the high one was my nervous system in operation, the low one my blood in circulation." Cage had gone to a place where he expected total silence, and yet heard sound. "Until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about the future of music." The realization as he saw it of the impossibility of silence led to the composition of 4′33″.'
I did read about those, a "challenge" is how long you can stay in there before going mad - I think the longest one lasted for 45 minutes.
I'd like to experience that sometime, like, true silence. Have to say that my current house is very quiet (especially compared to my previous one), but there's still some background noise from outside, neighbours, the ventilation, etc. Should get a decibel meter sometime.
I had very bad tinnitus in my right ear for a few weeks that seriously fucked with my life, and turned out--thank God--to be a sinus issue. A doctor prescribed me a nasal spray and over-the-counter sinus pills, and it started slowly getting better after a few days. I only notice it if I'm looking for it now.
That page right there is why I never used Reddit and when I drop by I just don't understand it. So, your comment sounds interesting, I click the page and it's just a bunch of unrelated stuff with title's like "Does anybody else use it when they don't want to hear something ?" Hear what? What is the level above, what connects these posts?? The top of the page just says "Come for the cats stay for the something" and the top post says "Awesome new relevant CSS trick added to the subreddit." -- What?? the link I clicked suggests something about "earrumblersassemble". Clicking on a Reddit link is almost always a maddening experience for me. What is wrong with me?!
You have an unrealistic expectation of Reddit. A subreddit is not an information dump for people who want to learn about a topic (for that you should look to the sidebar, or FAQ, or Wikipedia).
Its a community of people who are interested in a topic (and trolls... so many trolls) sorted by the most recent things they were talking about and whether the community wanted to talk about it. Communities don't constantly post and upvote introductory stuff in case new people happen by, but they are often responsive to questions from new people
Think of it like a clubhouse that you walked into. Right now you are standing at the bar trying to listen in on random conversations around you and saying "none of these people are talking about what I want to know in terms I can understand, some of them are even talking about whether they like the clubhouse's new decorations! WTF!".
Instead you should try joining into one of the conversations, or looking for a sign that says "new people come over here".
Don't worry, I'm with you on this one. It's a garbage format, and it's assuredly a willful lack of organization as an exclusionary tactic, used to alienate people on some level, and require degrees of subordination among those late to the party. Is it simply a natural defense mechanism, that preserves an otherwise autonomous complex system? Maybe...
It's used all over the internet, and it's, by turns, a passive aggressive posture. Some acquiesce, and others enforce. The rest abandon. Linux follows a similar pattern with RTFM.
The Linux community process, as an example, has graduated to exclusion through sheer volume, with shrugs all around, as if to say the world really is just that complicated. But it's not. Inertia makes the situation more complicated than things need to be, and that disorganization (which was originally a product of the "everything is a file/lots of tiny, specialized executable programs" philosophy started with UNIX, leaves everyone blameless and) offers advantages to what I've come to refer to as trivia sherpas, who understand the seniority they've accumulated, and wish to keep things that way.
It often doesn't start as anything malicious, and some of it really is incidental, but that it stays that way is no accident. Sort of like the petroleum and automobile industry dynamic. Neither was an ideal solution for the problems they solve, but once circumstances snowballed in a certain direction, we all got stuck with these elephants in the room. Is it possible to uproot and improve the situation? I wonder...
Even reddit has its moments. For that matter, so do even YouTube comments.
It depends a lot on the subreddit (they're essentially different websites), and of course the people. You can often find the great Walter Bright himself answering questions on D, for instance - https://www.reddit.com/user/WalterBright
That got me thinking: what if the hum is a two-part process? First, infrasound/near-DC pressure fluctuation triggers the tensor tympani reflex. Then, in susceptible individuals, the tensor muscle twitches, spasms, or otherwise locks up.
Alternatively, it could be a resonance mode between infrasound stimuli and tension/relaxation of the tensor tympani. Eg. Pressure pulse -> TT reflex -> neural reflex drops as sound is blocked by TT -> repeat.
Total speculation, but this would explain the person-dependent experience, as well as the inefficacy of earplugs, sound dampening, etc.
> A subreddit for those who can control their Tensor Tympani muscle.
Oh weird, I always assumed that was something that people could just do. It never occurred to me that there would be any particular variance in it. Oddly enough, it seems a little easier to do if I close my eyes.
I don't know the correct terms here, but there is a path from your throat to your ears that is normally closed. When you swallow or yawn the paths usually open, but some people can voluntarily open them.
When you do it, you can hear a low humming, but also sounds through your mouth. Maybe this is what you mean?
It's clearer if you're wearing for example hearing protection, and open your mouth and the paths.
Short version: I made many attempts to track it down. Used low frequency Microphones, filters, amplifiers, etc, as well as PC Spectrogram programs to try and and visualise and record it. Visited many nearby industries etc to try and find it. But none of my attempts did any good.
As I'm a Radio Engineer I spent ages experimenting with VLF Receivers, Spectrum Analysers, etc.
One thing I noticed however was that the Hum was much worse when I was living in a quiet rural area.
One night however, I noticed that I could affect the hum by doing the swallow maneuver that divers use to equalise ear pressure. I slowly came to understand that my Hum was an internally generated sound.
Apparently there are various possible mechanisms: The simplest is blood flow near the ear. But also the tiny hairs in the ear canal actually have tiny muscles which cause feed-back or "regeneration" to make our ears more sensitive, and the frequency response of each hair cell much sharper. However at times, this regeneration can slip over into actual Oscillation.
This ability of the ear to actually generate sounds is well documented. It can actually be loud enough for a Doctor or a partner to hear. It's called Objective tinnitus.
In my case, the Hum eventually disappeared and has never returned. I suspect that it coincided with a change in blood pressure medication, but I can't be sure.
Looking back, I would suggest that it may be worth trying to amplify the sounds via a set of high-quality earphones and appropriate filters, etc, using the headphones as microphones.