Online Hearing Test

Find the highest frequency you can still hear.

Everything runs in your browser. No audio is ever uploaded.

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Test mode

Ear

This is not a medical device and not a hearing diagnosis. Results depend on your headphones, your sound card and the noise around you, so they are relative and approximate. If you are worried about your hearing, see an audiologist.

Can you hear this tone?

Play the tone before you answer.

Use headphones in a quiet room and set your volume to a comfortable, moderate level. Play each tone, then tap Yes or No.

Audio starts on your first tap on Play, as required by your browser.

An online hearing test steps through tones and asks a single question each time: can you hear this. This free hearing frequency test, also called an online audiogram test or a hearing range test, runs from 125 Hz to 20 kHz in your browser. It is a self-check for your own curiosity, never a diagnosis.

Typical upper limits by age

Age band	Typical upper limit
18 and under	20 kHz
In their 30s	16 kHz
In their 40s	14 kHz
In their 50s	12 kHz
60 and over	10 kHz

Population averages, not a diagnosis. Individual hearing varies widely inside every age band.

For the quick party version that only asks for your highest audible tone, open the Hearing Age Test

How to use it

Put on headphones, find a quiet room and set a comfortable, moderate volume. Speakers, background noise and a volume you keep adjusting are the three fastest ways to get a meaningless result.
Choose a mode. Quick check plays eleven frequencies from 125 Hz to 20 kHz at one level and asks yes or no. Threshold test is slower: it drops the level 10 dB at a time at six frequencies, one ear after the other.
In quick check, pick which ear to test: left, right or both. Testing one ear at a time is the only way to notice that the two sides differ, which is worth knowing.
For the threshold test, set your volume on the 1 kHz reference tone first and then leave it alone. Every level after that is measured against that starting point, so changing the volume mid test invalidates everything before it.
Play each tone, then answer honestly. Guessing when you are not sure moves the result, and Go back undoes an answer you gave too quickly.
Read the results. The quick check lists heard and not heard per frequency; the threshold test draws an audiogram with circles for the left ear and crosses for the right, which you can download as an image or copy as text.

What you can use it for

Finding your own upper limit. The top of the range is the part that changes first, so knowing whether you follow a tone to 14 kHz or 17 kHz today gives you something to compare with later.

Comparing your two ears. A noticeable difference between left and right is the kind of thing worth mentioning to a doctor or an audiologist, and this test makes it easy to notice.

Tracking a change over time. Run the same mode on the same headphones at the same volume every few months. The absolute numbers mean little, but a shift in your own series is worth a professional opinion.

Understanding an audiogram before an appointment. Seeing frequencies on one axis and levels on the other makes the chart a clinician shows you much easier to follow.

Checking your equipment as much as your ears. If a frequency is silent on one pair of headphones and present on another, you have learned something about the headphones.

What lives at each frequency

Frequency	Everyday sounds in that region
125 Hz	Distant thunder, the low notes of a bass guitar, the rumble of a passing truck, the bottom of a very deep voice.
250 Hz	The fundamental of a typical male speaking voice, a cello, the warmth of a room.
500 Hz	The fundamental of a typical female speaking voice and the body of most instruments.
1 kHz	The middle of speech and the reference frequency audiometry is built around. Almost every level comparison starts here.
2 kHz	Where speech becomes intelligible rather than merely audible. A telephone stops around here.
4 kHz	Consonants such as s, f and t, which carry meaning. This is also the region that noise exposure tends to affect first.
8 kHz	Cymbals, birdsong, sibilance, the hiss in a whispered word.
12 kHz	Air and sparkle. Nothing here carries meaning, but its absence makes a recording sound closed in.
16 to 20 kHz	The top octave. Older cathode ray tube televisions whined at 15.7 kHz. Most adults hear nothing above 16 kHz, and very few people of any age reach 20 kHz.

Accuracy and limits

This is not a medical device and not a hearing diagnosis. It plays tones and records your answers. Clinical audiometry uses calibrated transducers in a sound treated booth, with a professional watching for the patterns that a yes or no button cannot capture. If you are worried about your hearing, see a doctor or an audiologist.

The levels are relative, not calibrated decibels. A web page cannot know how loud your hardware plays, so a threshold of -40 dB here means forty decibels below the level you set yourself, on your headphones, in your room. It is a number to compare with your own earlier results and nothing else.

Your hardware and your room take part in the result. Cheap headphones roll off the top, a Bluetooth codec throws away the extremes, a fan or traffic masks the quietest tones, and a system equalizer can change the level of a single band. Use wired headphones in a quiet room and change nothing between runs.

Frequently asked questions

How accurate is an online hearing test?

Accurate enough to notice a large difference between your ears or a change from your own earlier run, and not accurate enough for anything else. There is no calibration, no booth and no clinician. Treat it as a prompt, and take an actual concern to a doctor or an audiologist.

What is a normal hearing range?

The textbook range is 20 Hz to 20 kHz, but that describes young ears in ideal conditions. The upper limit falls gradually for everyone with age, so many healthy adults stop somewhere between 14 and 16 kHz. These are population averages, not a standard you pass or fail, and only a professional can interpret your own hearing.

What is the difference between the quick check and the threshold test?

The quick check asks whether you hear each of eleven frequencies at one level, which maps the width of your range in about a minute. The threshold test asks how quiet a tone can get before it disappears, at six frequencies per ear, and draws that as an audiogram.

Why can I not hear 16 kHz any more?

Most commonly because sensitivity in the top octave declines with age for everyone, which is ordinary rather than alarming. Your headphones may also simply not reproduce it. A sudden change, a difference between your ears, or ringing alongside it are reasons to see a doctor or an audiologist rather than a web page.

Can I take the test with speakers instead of headphones?

You can, but the result is much weaker. Speakers reach both ears, so testing one side becomes impossible, the room adds peaks and dips of its own, and few speakers reproduce the top octave at all. Headphones, ideally wired, are worth the trouble here.

What do the dB numbers in the audiogram mean?

They are levels relative to the volume you set at the start, not clinical hearing level. A clinical audiogram is plotted in dB HL against a calibrated reference, which is exactly the part a browser cannot supply. Use these numbers to compare your two ears and your own runs, and leave the interpretation to a professional.