I want you to listen to these two sounds

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A big thank you to Titus Grenyer over at Pep Organ for showing us around the Sydney Town Hall Organ, to Dr. Diana Deutsch for providing her illusions and insight into the field, to Casey Connor for advice on building sound illusions, and to Dr. Michael Bach for providing the motion-bounce illusion.

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Images & Video:

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Special thanks to our Patreon supporters:

Adam Foreman, Anton Ragin, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Bill Linder, Blake Byers, Bruce, Burt Humburg, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, I. H., John H. Austin, Jr., john kiehl, Josh Hibschman, Juan Benet, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, TTST, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, wolfee

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Directed by Sulli Yost and Derek Muller
Hosted by Derek Muller
Written by Sulli Yost and Derek Muller
Edited by Jack Saxon and Peter Nelson
Animated by Fabio Albertelli, David Szakaly, and Ivy Tello
Illustrations by Jakub Misiek
Filmed by Derek Muller
Produced by Sulli Yost, Derek Muller, Rob Beasley Spence, Emily Lazard, Tori Brittain, Emily Zhang, Petr Lebedev, Gregor Čavlović, and Gabe Bean

Thumbnail contributions by Peter Sheppard and Ren Hurley

Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Storyblocks, and Envato

Music from GarageBand, Virtual Piano, and Epidemic Sound

[agnosticpanda]

Weird. To me sound B sounds clearly higher than sound A.

[AdamNeely]

I'd be very surprised if many people thought that A sounded higher than B.

[vger]

My second piano teacher built a pipe organ with pipes installed from floor to ceiling on every wall in his living room and the basement beneath it. The lower (bass) note pipes were all in the basement and when he played those notes on the foot keyboard, you felt it more than heard it. He traveled the country to attend church auctions and such to collect the various pipes over the years. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue on that… chills.

[the-aphelion-archives]

13:48 “Most of us can do this with little effort.” It is true that most people are able to pick out and focus on specific sounds even in a crowded room full of others having conversations. But here is a fun fact: being unable to do this, or having a much harder time with this, is common in autistic individuals and in people with auditory processing disorders!

[MADMAXX-]

"Put on headphones for the full experience."
"Ok, will do."
**deaf through church organ**

[argfasdfgadfgasdfgsdfgsdfg]

7:45 "Players can't level up until they collect enough COINS." That's sacrilige. Society is beginning to crumble.

[Emblazened]

To me, sound B sounded clearly like sound A with another higher tone stacked on top of it.

[gregorcutt]

12:50 So now I feel less stupid that sometimes I need to put my glasses on to hear people.

[AAArend]

10:16 No matter how hard I try, I can only hear he worlds "low" and "high" scrambled through one another

[matiKRK]

My phone's speaker was not able to produce a 100 Hz and I was confused why there was no sound

[Dante...]

Derek: In Mario 64, players can't level up until they collect enough coins.

Anyone who's ever played the game: Wot?

[DodderingOldMan]

That bit on the Cocktail Party Effect is really interesting to me personally. I strongly suspect there is something different about my audio processing, because I really, really struggle to hear people in situations like that. Other people will be having conversations without difficulty while I won't be able to make out a word. And I think this carries over into the way I appreciate and understand music. I never remember lyrics from songs because I really don't process them, I just hear the vocals as part of the unified sound of the music. I honestly don't think this is a bad thing, actually I think it enhances my appreciation of music as a coherent, rich, unified sound.

[Lord_Yoshi]

7:40 "In Super Mario 64, there's a staircase that seems to go on forever. Players can't level up until they collect enough coins."
You w0t?

[dalyxia]

22:59 "a cocktail party would always just sound like a complete mess"

yep, thats what it always sounds to me, i cant for the life of me hear anyone in a noisy environment.

[kevincronk]

I clicked on this video about sound thinking I could close my eyes and fall asleep to it, ended up actively watching the whole thing lol

[AngelInTheDesert]

“Audio version of a barbershop pole” that visual was

[BattleMercy-ufzy]

"You should put on headphones" :)
*Gets organed*

[nicksamek]

Sound B sounded higher to me though lol

[athirkell]

17:09 This is why dogs (and other animals) cock their heads to one side when they're concentrating hard - it lets them more easily recognise the source of sounds vertically as well as horizontally. Super cute to boot.

[bendawson]

I'm deaf in one ear and parties, restaurants and the like are nightmares for me. I understand more than someone with two ears or none how sound (the direction, the type, intensity, pitch, etc.) really is an illusion without correct reference or being able to see the source. Sound, therefore has always fascinated me. The mind can be so easily tricked. I'm constantly looking the wrong way, losing my balance. But, I can isolate sounds I recognise and focus on them, such as listening to an orchestra. My dad was amazed I could do this. I actually think we physically focus our ears like we would our eyes. I also figured out how to create a false midrange that you can talk through in a club, as conversation is in that region. Adjust the bass and treble so the bass is up a bit more than the bass. Wiggle it around until you hear this flat balance where they don't overtake each other, but so you can hear the midrange coming through clearly. Even though it'll be loud, you'll be able to talk and hear as the majority of the midrange has been filtered.