hearing tests - where and how?

Good luck on finding an audiologist who tests above 8k. There is a legitimate reason for that. The profession serves a community of persons whose hearing actually causes a problem with their daily life - up to about 4k is all that is important in that respect. Not many health professionals are there to determine whether someone has an optimal response to music - would not be much business. Being able to hear voice without someone screaming is more the focus, and more what the vast majority of people are concerned with. As far as audiologist's only being in the business of selling hearing aids, what's wrong with that? Requiring, or even being on the cusp of requiring a hearing aid is a significant health and living concern. On any realistic scale, having an optimum hearing response for music is not a significant health or living concern. Regardless, if you look hard enough you can probably find someone who will be willing to test your hearing out to 50k - great for the supertweater crowd and those who hear chaos influenced electrons in cables.

Addendum: correction to previous post. I stated "Have you gone to the libraries to see if there is any research in this area? It appears that you are conceding that there is not.". This should read "Have you gone to the libraries to see if there is any research to support your contention? It appears that you are conceding that there is not."

Kr4 is correct on all points in this discussion. After spending many years in the field of biomedical engineering and having read hundreds of engineering as well as medical journal articles I can attest to the fact that if there is a topic that is unsettled or begs to be investigated then there is research being conducted on the topic and articles published on the research. The nature of research in these fields is that repeated studies are carried out by different researchers, not only to investigate previously researched questions but also to validate (or invalidate) the results of already published research studies. A single study, without verification, says little. As it is universally accepted that the upper frequency limit of human hearing is 20kHz (look in any physiology textbook) the burden lies with those who assert that the upper limit is higher. A trip to your local enginneering and medical college libraries will provide you with the resources to conduct literature searches of published research necessary to support your theory. Many public universities provide access and assistance to members of the community.

Learsfool: Have you gone to the libraries to see if there is any research in this area? It appears that you are conceding that there is not. As far as your comment that you are surprised that a person with an engineering background would make the statement in my last post, maybe that surprise comes because your apparently have no scientific background. Try actually going and doing a literature search more extensive than googling "hearing and music" so that you have some idea as to what is actually researched by those in the area of physics, engineering, and medicine. You apparently have no idea. Your arguments for why, as you have conceded, there is no research is the old "bad money hungry science guys" variation of "bad big society" argument. You could try the Roswell secret hidden alien argument - about as valid and equally applicable to everything contrary to science (can work for ufo's, telekenisis, homeopathy, or any other crackpot idea). As far as your statement regarding profit, your definition of potential profit is so broad that it would be hard to imagine that establishing that people hear above 20 kHz would not be profitable. After all Sony, Miramax, and dozens of other companies could certainly find a way to turn such proof into profit. What is the vastly more reasonable explanation is that if there is no research in the area it is because people generally do not waste their time and resources investigating proven facts.