A long time ago I was listening to some noisecore band on archive.org and I had my earphones in my laptop and the audio was very low (the audio quality was very poor, it was some shit Lenovo Ideapad) and when the song played it was so loud it felt it about burst my fucking eardrums, it pierced my damn ears (I can only imagine listening to this on a Samsung). Turns out, a low-volume noisecore track can feel piercing due to extreme waveform peaks and hardware quirks. Audacity can reproduce this effect if the waveform is amplified, normalized, or heavily compressed.
This is physically safe for the most part, but very uncomfortable — prolonged exposure could damage hearing, especially through earphones.
While many songs are rumored to kill people in obscure occult, “cursed media” boards (like "Alumina" from Death Note or some vague song called "13th Track" that was never elaborated) however obscure noisecore tracks with extreme clipping and infrasound content could in theory, kill somebody via psychogenic shock.
Clipping occurs when a waveform exceeds the digital or analog limits of a system, causing the signal to be flattened at the peaks.
What this does physically is it produces very harsh, high-frequency harmonics. These harmonics can be painful to the ears, even if the base frequency is low. In headphones or small speakers you get ear pain, tinnitus, or temporary hearing threshold shift. Rapid, loud transients can startle the nervous system, causing a fight-or-flight response.
Sudden, harsh sounds can trigger extreme fear or panic, adrenaline spikes, cardiovascular stress (heart rate spikes, blood pressure increases). Alone, clipping is rarely fatal, but combined with other stressors, it can contribute to psychogenic death in vulnerable individuals.
The most plausible “psychogenic threat” comes from clipping + infrasound together. In theory, a person with preexisting cardiovascular issues could die from sudden stress triggered by this combination, which is essentially psychogenic death.
High-pitched, repetitive tones (like a cricket chirp) are easily detectable by the human ear even at low volumes and hard to ignore, especially when repetitive or irregular. Combine this with ultrasonic pressure you'll create a multi-modal sensory stressor — body feels pressure, ears hear irritating signal the brain perceives a threat stress response is amplified.
This is consistent with reports from “sonic harassment” cases (like Havana Syndrome rumors), or folklore like “Sad Satan,” where victims report persistent nausea, disorientation, and cognitive confusion. It cannot physically injure internal organs at normal device levels. But it can cause disorientation, stress, nausea, and headache, contribute to temporary memory or attention issues, and exacerbate preexisting vulnerabilities in highly sensitive individuals.
Here's SomeOrdinaryGamer getting sick for days after playing Sad Satan (CP version, not the "ObscureHorrorCorner" or Reddit one).
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-9fMBvk6PDYhttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zCjkgTnKT20