It’s not home theater but it is acoustic news.  I found this an interesting tidbit that speaks to the degradation of our ears as we age.  I’ve long held that many of the so called golden ear audiophiles are delusional and imagine many of the qualities they associate with high end audio gear.  Here is further illustration that the real audiophiles should be teenagers.

A British inventor Howard Stapleton created this device to exploit younger people’s ability to hear sounds in the higher bands than we of the over 30 set cannot.  It’s designed to repel rowdy teenagers by annoying the hell out of their eardrums with this high frequency sound that adults simply don’t hear.  The Mosquito had a successful field test at a store in Barry, South Wales.  Robert Gough a store owner tried the device because a particular crowd would hang out in front of his store drinking, smoking, disturbing customers and frequently making “disruptive forays” into his business.  The unruly teens were even blamed for the occasional assault on staff.  The device emits a 75 db tone, loud but within safety limits so it won’t damage anybodies hearing.  A rock concert is around 100 db, 85 is the accepted maximum before damage to the eardrum occurs.  Well the device worked, Mr Gough had kids coming in holding their hands over their ears begging him to turn off the device.  He told the kids that it was to ward off birds because of reports of bird flu in the area.  Classic!