Elderly people, especially some old men, appear to have very large ears. This paper presents an investigation on the acoustic significance of the age dependent ear elongation. HRTFs and ear lengths were measured for two groups of young and old people. The older groups had larger ears on average, corresponding to what is reported in the literature. For female ears, virtually no acoustical effect was found. For male ears directional dependent effects in the range up to 5 dB on average was found for certain directions and frequencies. Implications on age dependent hearing loss (presbycusis) and measurements thereof are discussed.
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