system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Is it possible for a sound outside your hearing spectrum to be loud enough to cause deafness?

I was pondering this the other day and couldn't think of anything definitive.
gpt
Sound is a pressure wave in air. "loudness" describes the energy of the wave and "sound" describes qualities such as frequency, timbre etc.

The ear is basically a bandpass filter. Frequencies within a certain range get amplified and frequencies outside of that range are attenuated. But its not a perfect filter... so you can still get minor resonance even at frequencies above or below your hearing range. If the wave is powerful enough, these vibrations can cause severe damage to the internal structure of the ear.

We could even explain this with an extreme case, like an extremely powerful pressure wave @ high frequency that would turn you into jelly.  

Hearing loss isn't even limited to physical damage... because all sound is interpreted by our brains. So if the neurons arent firing properly to stimuli, youve got hearing loss.