Check your hearing range with pure tones
Find your high-frequency limit and screen your range across the audible spectrum, one clean pure tone at a time.
Start the hearing testThis is a screening, not a diagnosis. An at-home tone test cannot replace professional audiometry in a sound-treated room. It depends on your headphones and your surroundings. If you notice hearing loss, ringing, or a difference between your ears, see an audiologist. Sudden hearing loss is a medical emergency.
Healthy young adults typically hear from about 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. The top of that range is the first thing to fade with age, a normal process called presbycusis, and loud-noise exposure can carve out a dip around 4 kHz. A tone generator lets you walk through the spectrum one frequency at a time and notice where sounds get faint or disappear.
Pure sine tones are exactly what audiometry uses because they test one frequency in isolation. ToneSynth plays the same standard audiometric frequencies an audiologist screens, so you get a realistic picture of your own range at home.
Test the audiometric set from 125 Hz up to 18 kHz with one tap each.
Check the left, right, or both ears to spot a difference between sides.
Sweep the high end to pinpoint the highest frequency you can still hear.
Set up well first, because the result is only as good as your conditions. Use wired headphones if you can, sit somewhere quiet, and start at a low volume.
Keep the volume fixed throughout so you are testing your ears, not your volume knob. Higher frequencies often need to be slightly louder to perceive, which is normal, but resist cranking the dial.
High-frequency hearing declines gradually for almost everyone. These are typical ranges, not strict cutoffs, and your headphones may roll off before your ears do.
If one ear clearly hears a frequency the other cannot, or if you have a notch around 4 kHz, that is worth mentioning to a professional. Asymmetry between ears is one of the more meaningful things a simple test can flag.
It is a useful screening, not a clinical measurement. Your headphones, sound card, and room all affect what you hear, and there is no calibration to a known sound-pressure level. Use it to spot changes or asymmetry, then confirm anything concerning with an audiologist.
The ear canal resonates around 3 to 4 kHz, which amplifies sound there and also makes that region more vulnerable to noise damage. A dip in hearing around 4 kHz, while neighboring frequencies stay strong, is a classic sign of noise-induced hearing loss.
High-frequency hearing fades with age for everyone, often dropping below 15 kHz by your forties. Past noise exposure speeds it up. It is also possible your speakers or headphones simply do not reproduce those frequencies, so check the equipment before assuming it is your ears.
Headphones, ideally wired ones. They isolate each ear so you can test sides separately and avoid room reflections that color the sound. Speakers make per-ear testing impossible and add the room's own peaks and dips to your results.
A clean, wired pair isolates each ear and avoids room reflections, which makes per-ear screening far more reliable:
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Put on headphones, set a steady volume, and walk through the audiometric frequencies.
Open the hearing testMatch the pitch of your ringing
How hearing works and ages
Audio test and calibration tones