Test your hearing range at home

What an at-home hearing test can and can't tell you

Your ears are most sensitive in the speech range and lose the top end first. As we age, the upper limit of hearing slowly drops - a normal process called presbycusis. A pure-tone test lets you hear roughly where your own ceiling sits and whether your two ears agree.

This is a screening tool, not a medical exam. Without calibrated headphones and a quiet, sound-treated room, the test can't give true thresholds in decibels. What it can do is genuinely useful: estimate your high-frequency limit, compare one ear against the other, and flag anything worth taking to an audiologist. TestTones generates the tones in your browser, so there is nothing to install.

Set up for an accurate test

• Use good headphones: over-ear headphones isolate each ear and remove the room. Laptop and phone speakers can't reproduce the high or low extremes and will give misleading results.
• Find a quiet room: background noise masks soft tones, especially the high ones. Test where it's calm.
• Start with low volume: set the volume slider low before you begin and raise it only to a comfortable level. High tones can be sharp and tiring.
• Don't watch the numbers: for an honest result, look away from the frequency readout so you respond to what you actually hear, not what you expect.
• Test each ear: use the ear selector to check left and right separately - a difference between ears is more telling than the absolute numbers.

Three ways to test

1. Hearing age test (your high-frequency limit)

In the hearing test section, start the hearing age test. It plays a tone that climbs in frequency; stop it the moment you can no longer hear anything, and note the value. As a rough guide, people under 25 often hear up to 17,000 to 20,000 Hz, those 35 to 45 up to around 12,000 to 15,000 Hz, and over 55 frequently top out near 8,000 to 10,000 Hz. These ranges overlap a lot, so treat your number as a ballpark.

2. Audiometric frequencies (point by point)

The audiometric frequencies card plays the standard test points - 125, 250, 500, 1,000, 2,000, 4,000, and 8,000 Hz - the same set clinics use. Pick "Both ears" first, then switch to "Left" and "Right" and tap through each frequency. You should hear every one clearly at a modest volume. A frequency that's much harder to hear in one ear is the kind of thing worth mentioning to a professional.

3. Tinnitus frequency matcher

If you have ringing in your ears, the tinnitus matcher lets you slide a tone until it lines up with the sound you hear, then use "Check octave" to confirm you didn't land an octave off - a common mistake. Knowing the frequency can help with masking and with describing your tinnitus to an audiologist. It is not a diagnosis.

Common questions

Is this a real hearing test?

No. It's a self-screening. Real audiometry uses calibrated equipment in a sound-treated booth to measure your threshold in decibels at each frequency. This tool can show your approximate range and ear-to-ear differences, which is a useful prompt to seek a proper test - not a replacement for one.

Why can I hear a high tone in one ear but not the other?

Some left-right difference is normal, but a clear, repeatable gap can indicate asymmetric hearing loss or even something simple like earwax. If one ear is consistently worse across several frequencies, see a professional.

I can't hear above 14,000 Hz. Should I worry?

Not on its own. High-frequency hearing declines with age and noise exposure, and losing the top octave is extremely common past your thirties. What matters more is whether you struggle with speech, which lives lower down around 250 to 4,000 Hz.

Why do low tones seem quieter than mid tones at the same volume?

Human hearing is most sensitive around 2,000 to 5,000 Hz and less sensitive at the extremes - the equal-loudness (Fletcher-Munson) effect. A 30 Hz tone has to be much louder than a 3,000 Hz tone to seem equally loud, so don't read quiet bass as hearing loss.

Protect the hearing you have

The most common preventable cause of hearing loss is loud sound over time. Keep test tones and music at a level where you don't need to raise your voice over them, take breaks during long listening, and use earplugs at concerts and loud venues. High-frequency loss doesn't grow back - so the goal of a test like this is awareness, not alarm.

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