Ear Age Test | How High Can You Hear? Hearing Range Test, Mosquito Tone & Earphone Left/Right Check
This tool measures how high a frequency you can hear, using the fact that our ears lose the high notes first. The step test plays tones from 8,000Hz to 21,000Hz one at a time and can mix in silent “catch” trials to guard against wishful hearing. The sweep raises and lowers the pitch continuously, and averaging the rising and falling results cancels out your reaction delay. You can test your left and right ears separately to compare them, check whether your earphones are wired left/right reversed by guessing which side a random tone comes from, and play any frequency you like (20Hz–22kHz) to try the mosquito tone or test your speakers’ highs and lows. All sound is generated inside your browser; nothing is recorded or sent.
First, set your volume
Turn your device volume down, then play the “reference tone” and adjust until it sounds quiet. High tones are hard to hear, so if the volume is too high you can strain your ears without noticing. Don’t change the device volume during the test.
Ears
Use earphones or headphones for one ear at a time.
Plays increasingly high tones for 1.6 seconds each, starting at 8,000Hz. Answer whether you heard each one to move to the next pitch; the test ends after two misses in a row.
1 / 12 · Both ears
8kHz
8,000Hz
- 8kHz
- 10kHz
- 12kHz
- 14kHz
- 15kHz
- 16kHz
- 17kHz
- 17.5kHz
- 18kHz
- 19kHz
- 20kHz
- 21kHz
Audible frequency and estimated ear age
This is a general guide. Individual differences are large, and results also depend on your playback device. This is not a medical test or diagnosis.
Highest pitch this device can play
Play a tone once to see this device’s sampling rate and playback limit. Built-in speakers on phones and laptops often produce almost nothing above 15–16kHz, and Bluetooth earphones may cut frequencies above 16–18kHz depending on the codec. For accurate results, we recommend wired earphones or headphones.
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About Ear Age Test | How High Can You Hear? Hearing Range Test, Mosquito Tone & Earphone Left/Right Check
The Ear Age Test measures how high a frequency (in Hz, hertz) you can hear and estimates your “ear age” from that upper limit. Human ears gradually lose the ability to hear high sounds with age, and the “mosquito tone,” said to be audible only to young people, sits at around 17kHz. This tool offers two ways to measure: a step test that plays tones from 8,000Hz to 21,000Hz one at a time, and a sweep that raises and lowers the pitch continuously. The step test can occasionally insert silent “catch” trials, so you can tell when wishful thinking or tinnitus leads you to answer “I heard it.” In the sweep, measuring both rising (press when it disappears) and falling (press when it appears) lets the delay before you press the button cancel out, making the average more accurate. You can also test your left and right ears separately to compare them, and check whether your earphones or headphones are wired left/right reversed by guessing which side a random tone plays from. There is also a feature for playing a sine wave at any frequency (20Hz–22kHz), handy for checking how high and low your speakers or earphones can go.
How to use Ear Age Test | How High Can You Hear? Hearing Range Test, Mosquito Tone & Earphone Left/Right Check
- 1Turn your device volume down, then use “Play reference tone (1,000Hz)” to set a level where it sounds quiet (don’t change the device volume after this)
- 2Under “Ears,” choose both ears, left ear only, or right ear only (use earphones or headphones for single-ear testing)
- 3In the “Step test,” press “Play tone,” then press “Heard it” if you heard it or “Didn’t hear it” if you didn’t
- 4The test ends after two misses in a row, showing the highest frequency you heard and your estimated ear age
- 5For a finer measurement, use the “Sweep” to measure both rising and falling, and check the average
- 6Use the “Left/right check” to guess which side a random tone plays from and confirm your earphones aren’t reversed
- 7Copy your result or share it on X
Great for
- Find out how high a frequency you can hear and get an estimate of your ear age
- Compare with family or friends who can hear the mosquito tone (around 17kHz)
- Test your left and right ears separately to check for a difference between them
- Make sure the left and right (L/R) channels of new earphones or headphones aren’t swapped
- Check how high your speakers, earphones, or Bluetooth connection can reproduce
- Explore the relationship between age and audible frequency for a science class or school project
- Play a sine wave at any frequency for tuning instruments or testing audio equipment
Good to know
- The ear age estimate uses brackets based on the general tendency to lose high frequencies with age. Individual differences are large even at the same age, and this is not a medical hearing test or diagnosis. If you have ongoing difficulty hearing, ringing in your ears, or a feeling of blocked ears, consult an ear, nose and throat (ENT) doctor.
- Standard hearing tests typically examine the 125–8,000Hz range. The high frequencies above 8,000Hz that this tool measures are a separate indicator from how well you follow everyday conversation.
- Turning the volume up too high strains your ears. High tones are harder to hear, which makes you want to raise the volume, but please keep the level you set with the reference tone at the start. This tool also caps the maximum volume.
- The highest frequency you can measure depends on your playback device. Built-in speakers on phones and laptops often produce almost nothing above 15–16kHz, and Bluetooth earphones may cut frequencies above 16–18kHz depending on the codec. For accurate results, we recommend wired earphones or headphones.
- The theoretical upper limit is half the sampling rate the browser uses to generate sound (usually 44,100Hz or 48,000Hz). Frequencies above that are not played.
- Fades are applied to the start and end of each tone to prevent click noises (which contain high-frequency components). If you still hear other sounds such as crackling or hissing with high tones, your device may be distorting.
- Sound is only generated and played inside your browser; the microphone is not used, and nothing is recorded or sent. Only the latest result for each ear is saved in this device’s browser.
Questions this tool answers
Use Ear Age Test | How High Can You Hear? Hearing Range Test, Mosquito Tone & Earphone Left/Right Check for searches like these:
- Find out my ear age based on how many Hz I can hear
- Try whether I can hear the mosquito tone
- Check whether I can hear a 17000Hz or 18000Hz tone
- See whether my left and right ears hear differently
- Make sure my earphones’ left and right aren’t reversed
- Find out how high my phone or earphones can play
- Play a tone (sine wave) at any frequency I choose
- Learn the typical audible frequency for each age group
FAQ
- Can you really tell ear age from how many Hz you can hear?
- Because people tend to lose high frequencies first as they age, the highest frequency you can hear serves as a rough guide. Common benchmarks are 17kHz for your 20s, 16kHz for your 30s, 14kHz for your 40s, 12kHz for your 50s, and 10kHz for your 60s. However, individual differences are large, and results also vary with the performance of your playback device.
- What frequency is the mosquito tone, and up to what age can people hear it?
- The mosquito tone is a high-pitched sound like a mosquito’s buzz, usually referring to sounds around 17kHz (roughly 17,000–17,400Hz). Most people can generally hear it until their mid-20s, and more people find it hard to hear from their 30s onward. Choose 17.4kHz in “Play a frequency” to play a tone at that pitch.
- Can I test with my phone’s speaker?
- You can, but the upper limit tends to come out lower. Many phones’ built-in speakers produce almost nothing above 15–16kHz, so it is hard to tell whether a tone you didn’t hear was due to your ears or the device. Testing with wired earphones or headphones is more accurate.
- What is a “catch” trial?
- In the step test, it occasionally asks “Did you hear it?” without playing any sound. In high-frequency tests, people sometimes answer “I heard it” to a tone they shouldn’t be able to hear, simply out of expectation. The number of times you answered “heard it” to silence is shown, so you can judge how reliable your result is.
- Why measure both rising and falling in the sweep?
- There is always some reaction delay between the moment a sound becomes inaudible and when you press the button. Rising sweeps read slightly high because of this delay and falling sweeps read slightly low, so averaging the two cancels out the delay and gets closer to the true value.
- How do I check whether my earphones’ left and right are reversed?
- In the “Left/right check,” use the “guessing test”: listen to six tones played randomly from the left or right, and answer which side you heard. If you get all of them right, the wiring is correct; if all of them are the opposite, the channels are very likely reversed. Also check that your device’s “Mono Audio” or “left/right balance” settings haven’t been changed.
- The pitch I can hear differs between my left and right ears. Is that okay?
- A small difference between ears is common, but a caution is shown when the difference is 2,000Hz or more. First, swap your earphones left and right and test again to make sure the difference isn’t coming from the earphones. If difficulty hearing or ringing in your ears persists, consult an ENT doctor.
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