Does anyone else have trouble distinguishing between octaves?
 

My musical jargon isn't up to par so this may be confusing.

I can tell differences in tone as well as the next average joe, like between a C and a D. Or a Cm and a C#. But pitch (I think?), like the difference between middle C and an octave higher C can sometimes be impossible for me to tell the difference (unless it's piano notes or something very clear). It's easier if its extreme of course, like anything more than 2 octaves apart. But especially in vocals, like if they have a certain style its almost impossible for me to place them. Even when they change octaves within the same song sometimes. Just wondering if this is normal for someone newish (~1.5 years of ameaturish learning) to music or if I may have a problem (I went partially deaf when I was a kid and sometimes have trouble controlling the volume of my voice).

No, that's common. Especially if you're singing along with something, it's a sign of innate musicality to put the melody in an octave that fits your singing voice. Especially if you can "duck" on the fly--jump an octave up or down if the melody gets outside your range.

I can spot an octave shift easilly, and can "duck" as I go - although I never knew it was called that.

I can't claim to have perfect pitch, as I can't tell you what note it is, but I can tune a guitar from memory and have it right to an external source.

It depends on the source. Like the OP implied, it's pretty easy to distinguish octaves on a piano or guitar because even single notes from those instruments are not really pure tones. Try it with a pure sine wave some time and you might find that you have a hard time distinguishing octaves.

By the way, Cm implies a triad (chord) made up of three tones "C - Eb - G" ... C# refers to a single tone.

Know a website where I can listen to a pure sine wave?

hah, oh. Thanks. Was trying to write C flat and C sharp ...totally mixed my signs up. So that should be Cb and C#?

I'm not aware of a web site where you can listen to a pure sine wave off hand, but you can generate your own with Audacity. Although, it's probably not as pure as a true (hardware) sine wave generator. There are also hearing test web sites that may do the octave test.

Yep, Cb and C# are what you meant.

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