Hearing age test
A tone rises from 8 kHz upwards. Press the button the moment it disappears. The frequency where it vanished is your upper hearing limit on this device.
Volume first. Turn your device volume down before pressing play, then raise it slowly. Tones start quiet on purpose. High-frequency tones can seem silent and then turn painfully loud when volume goes up. Never raise the volume just because you hear nothing.
Play a single high tone
Tap any frequency to play it steadily. The age ranges are broad and approximate; individual hearing varies widely.
| Tone | Usually heard by |
|---|---|
| Almost everyone | |
| Most people under about 50 | |
| Most people under about 40 | |
| Many people under about 30 | |
| Many people under about 25–30 | |
| Mostly under about 25 | |
| Mostly under about 20 | |
| Mostly children and teens |
Why high frequencies go first
Inside the cochlea, sound is sorted by pitch along a coiled membrane lined with tiny hair cells. High frequencies are detected near the entrance, where every sound passes through, so those hair cells take the most wear over a lifetime. Once damaged, they do not grow back. That is why age-related hearing loss (presbycusis) and noise damage show up first at the top of the range.
Losing hearing above 15 kHz barely affects speech, which sits mostly between 250 Hz and 8 kHz. For the frequencies that matter for conversation, use the full online hearing test, and see an audiologist if anything worries you.
Questions people ask
How does a hearing age test work?
The ability to hear very high frequencies declines gradually with age, a condition called presbycusis. By finding the highest tone you can hear, the test gives a rough idea of how your high-frequency hearing compares with typical age groups.
What is the mosquito tone?
A tone around 17.4 kHz, used by the Mosquito anti-loitering device and popularised as a "teen ringtone" that many adults could not hear. Many people over 25 struggle to hear it at normal levels.
Why does my result look older than I am?
Most often it is your equipment: phone speakers, many earbuds and Bluetooth codecs roll off above 15–16 kHz. Browser audio at 44.1 kHz can reach at most 22 kHz. Noise exposure also affects high frequencies early. Treat the result as a fun indicator, not a measurement.
Can this test damage my hearing?
Not at sensible levels. The risk is turning the volume up when a tone seems silent, because very high tones can become painfully loud the moment they cross your threshold. Keep the volume fixed at a comfortable level.
Keep testing
- Hearing testA quiet-tone check of each ear at six frequencies. Not a diagnosis.
- Headphone testChannels, phase, bass extension and treble in one pass.
- Tone generatorSine, square, triangle and sawtooth from 1 Hz to 22 kHz.