20,000 Hz tone
The top edge of human hearing.
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.
What 20,000 Hz is used for
The textbook upper limit, heard mainly by children. Many devices, Bluetooth codecs and browsers cut off below this, so silence here is not proof of anything about your ears.
| Period | 50.0 µs |
|---|---|
| Wavelength in air (20 °C) | 1.7 cm |
| One octave down / up | 10000 Hz / 40000 Hz |
The generator above starts at 20,000 Hz. You can still move the slider to any other frequency, or open the full tone generator.
Questions people ask
Why can't I hear the 20,000 Hz tone?
Hearing above 15 kHz fades with age for most people, and many phone speakers, earbuds and Bluetooth codecs cannot reproduce it at all. Silence here does not prove anything about your ears. Do not turn the volume up hard to find it.
How long is one cycle of 20,000 Hz?
50.0 microseconds. In room-temperature air the wavelength is about 1.7 centimetres.
Keep testing
- Tone generatorSine, square, triangle and sawtooth from 1 Hz to 22 kHz.
- Frequency sweepLogarithmic or linear sweeps over any range and duration.
- Hearing age testFind the highest frequency you can still hear.