This free online hearing test finds your hearing frequency range: the highest and the lowest tone you can hear, for both ears or each ear on its own. Put on headphones, set a comfortable volume and answer “I hear it” or “I can’t” for each tone. It takes about three minutes.
Not a medical test. It shows what you can hear with your device, for curiosity and for checking headphones. It cannot diagnose hearing loss. If you notice a change in your hearing, ringing, pain or one-sided hearing loss, see a doctor or an audiologist.
Hearing Test
- Setup
- Volume
- High tones
- Low tones
- Results
Find the highest and lowest tones you can hear
Takes about 3 minutes. Sit somewhere quiet and use headphones: they send each tone to one ear and play high and low tones far better than phone speakers.
Not a medical test. This checks the range of frequencies you can hear with your device, for curiosity and for checking headphones. It cannot diagnose hearing loss, which needs calibrated equipment. If you notice a change in your hearing, ringing in the ears, pain, or hearing loss in one ear, see a doctor or an audiologist.
Set a comfortable volume
A 1,000 Hz tone is playing. Set your device volume and this slider so the tone is soft but clear, like quiet conversation, never loud. Keep this level for the whole test.
Do not turn the volume up to hear a very high or very low tone later: a louder tone does not make the result better and can hurt your ears.
High tones
Both ears8,000 Hz
Keys: Y I hear it · N I can't · R play again
Your hearing range
Results depend on your device, headphones, room noise and volume. This is not a diagnosis; for any concern about your hearing, see a doctor or an audiologist.
Related Tools
- Tone Generator
Play any single frequency from 1 to 20,000 Hz as long as you like.
- Frequency Detector
Measure the Hz of a sound you hear, such as a whine or hum.
- Spectrogram Viewer
See high and low sounds around you as a live picture.
- Ear Training
Train your musical ear: intervals, pitch and more.
How the Hearing Frequency Test Works
- Setup: choose both ears, the left ear, the right ear or each ear in turn, and whether to test high tones, low tones or both.
- Volume: a 1,000 Hz tone plays. Set it soft but clear, then keep that level. Use the left and right check buttons to make sure your headphones are the right way round.
- High tones: short beeps climb from 8,000 Hz to 20,000 Hz. Answer each one. A tone you miss is played once more before it counts, then the test tries the half-way frequency to narrow your limit.
- Low tones: beeps step down from 100 Hz to 20 Hz in the same way.
- Results: your highest and lowest audible frequency for each ear, a range bar and where the result sits in the typical-by-age table.
Each tone plays as three soft beeps, because a pulsed tone is easier to notice than a steady one, and every beep fades in and out so there are no clicks. One silent check is hidden in each test: if you answer “I hear it” when nothing was played, the result tells you so. You can answer with the keys Y, N and R (play again).
What Is the Normal Human Hearing Range?
Human hearing is usually given as 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. Young children often reach 20 kHz; for most adults the top is lower, and it keeps falling with age, a change called presbycusis. Everyday speech sits mainly between about 250 and 4,000 Hz, so losing the top octave does not stop you understanding people, but it removes the air and sparkle from music.
| Age | Typical highest audible frequency |
|---|---|
| Under 20 | 17,000–20,000 Hz |
| 20–29 | 15,000–17,000 Hz |
| 30–39 | 14,000–15,000 Hz |
| 40–49 | 12,000–14,000 Hz |
| 50–59 | 10,000–12,000 Hz |
| 60 and over | 8,000–10,000 Hz or lower |
The well-known “mosquito tone” around 17,400 Hz is used because many teenagers hear it and many adults do not. If your result is well below the typical band for your age, repeat the test with good headphones in a quiet room; if it stays low, it is worth a proper hearing check.
How Low Can You Hear?
Below about 20 Hz sound becomes infrasound, felt as pressure more than heard. Our ears are much less sensitive to low tones, so a 30 Hz tone needs far more energy than a 1 kHz tone to sound equally loud. That is why the low test is so dependent on equipment: at a comfortable volume, many people hear down to 25–40 Hz on good headphones, while a phone speaker may stop at 100–200 Hz. The instrument and voice ranges on our frequency ranges chart show which sounds live down there: the lowest piano key is 27.5 Hz.
Why Your Device Matters
| Playback device | Usual limits | Good for this test? |
|---|---|---|
| Phone speaker | about 150 Hz – 16 kHz | No: low test not possible, high test often limited |
| Laptop speakers | about 100 Hz – 16 kHz | Limited |
| Wireless earbuds | about 20 Hz – 16–18 kHz | Fair; some cut above 16 kHz |
| Wired over-ear headphones | about 20 Hz – 20 kHz | Best choice |
If your highest tone sits exactly at 16 kHz, try another pair of headphones: the device may be the limit, not your ears. Bluetooth codecs can also cut very high frequencies. Devices that run audio at a low sample rate cannot make tones above half that rate; the result tells you when that happens. To hear a single high or low tone for as long as you like, use the tone generator above; to see which frequencies your room is full of, open a spectrogram.
How This Differs From a Clinical Hearing Test
An audiologist measures how quietly you can hear each frequency, usually from 250 to 8,000 Hz, with calibrated headphones in a sound booth, and plots it on an audiogram in dB HL. This online test measures something simpler: which frequencies you can hear at one comfortable level. It is a good first look and a fun way to compare ears or headphones, but it cannot replace an audiogram. Noise damage, for example, often shows first as a dip around 4,000 Hz, which a range test does not measure.
Protect Your Hearing
- Keep the test volume soft. A louder tone does not give a better result and very high or very low tones can harm your ears before they sound loud.
- Follow the 60/60 habit for music: no more than 60% volume for no more than 60 minutes at a time.
- Wear earplugs at concerts, clubs and with power tools; noise damage adds up and does not heal.
- See a professional if one ear is clearly worse, if you have ringing that does not fade, or if speech in noise gets hard to follow.
Curious how pitch, frequency and hearing fit together? The knowledge hub collects our guides, and the note frequency chart shows the Hz of every note; the top note of a piano, C8, is only 4,186 Hz, far below your upper limit. Singers can compare this with the human vocal range, which spans only a few hundred to about a thousand hertz of fundamental frequency. More free checks for your ears and your music are on the tools page.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Hz hearing test?
A hearing test that plays tones of known frequency in hertz and asks whether you hear them, to find your highest and lowest audible frequency. This page runs one in your browser.
Is this online hearing test accurate?
It is accurate about the tones it plays, but the result also depends on your headphones, volume and room noise. Treat it as an estimate, repeat it on another device if the result surprises you, and see a professional for a real diagnosis.
What frequency can only young people hear?
Tones above about 17,000 Hz. Most teenagers hear them; most adults over 30 do not.
Why can’t I hear 20,000 Hz?
Very few adults can, and many headphones and phones cannot play it. Hearing up to 15–17 kHz is typical for adults in their twenties.
Should I test each ear separately?
Yes, with headphones: choose Each ear and the test runs left then right, so you can see if one ear hears less. A difference of more than about 2 kHz that repeats is worth mentioning to a doctor.
Do I need headphones?
They are strongly recommended. Speakers cannot test one ear at a time, and most phone and laptop speakers cannot play the lowest or highest tones.