I recently turned 21 and I can barely hear the 19Khz tone. Kind of sad, considering I do my best to take care of my ears.

This may be even less scientific than you think. What’s the useful frequency range on your average computer sound card? I don’t know but I suspect that they’re not made to go all the way up to 22 kHz. And even if they are I doubt it would be a flat frequency response. That being said I could detect 17 kHz, really 18 kHz but I don’t think I would notice it if I didn’t know it was playing.

>> MODERATOR NOTE: yes, computer speakers often have a high frequency response of less that 22 Khz, but that just means that the volume is reduced by some amount at these frequencies. It still plays them, it might just be down by 3-6dB or so. You can test this by putting a mic in front of your computer speakers & recording the 22kHz tone… you’ll still see a tone that is definitely loud enough to hear (provided of course that your ears aren’t as dead as mine!)

I just turned 21 and the last one I can hear is the 21khz.

I didn’t hear anything beyond 15. I’m 24.

I’m 18, and the lastone heard was 19 khz…

I can’t hear the 16khz one, i’m 29 and have a full head of hair, thank god

19, can hear until 22kHz. Then again I’ve had headaches in the past because of my hearing… /:

Weird. I’ve got a dead zone at the 15khz range, but beyond that can hear up to 20. And I’m nearly 30.

I’m 27 and the highest one I can hear is 17khz.

Age 21 and I can only hear up to 15 kHz. I don’t listen to music or attend concerts. I once banged a pencil against a ruler against my ears lots of times in 5th grade, and my ears were ringing for many minutes afterward. Perhaps this is why I can’t hear.

I’m 65 years old and 12,000 was the best I could do. Too much loud music over the years…..

15 and 18 oh gawd.

I am 50 and can barely hear 14.

oh this is scary….I’m 32 and I can’t hear 15khz

I’m 21 and I have no problem hearing 22kHz. Weird. I thought the human range of hearing was only 2Hz to 20kHz.

I can hear them all, but oddly enough 20hz is the most faint one for me.

Im 23 and barely hear 17

I am 19, I can barley hear 17

I can hear all samples clearly, up to and including 22kHz.

In case it was just my speakers being odd, I tried it on my laptop, same results.

I’m 35.

You know, you ought to make sure that your headphones or speakers can reproduce the higher frequency sounds. Also, have no background noise makes it easier to hear the higher ones.

I am twenty years old and the highest I can hear is 18khz. I’m disappointed!

age:19
can hear 18 khz very loud and clear with my macbook pro being only on 2 notches volume.

can hear 19 khz if i turn my sound up fairly loud

past that, i can’t hear the sound but my computer makes a sound like its playing something when it starts / finishes. if you know what i mean.

might just be a bad sound card.
but yes, very unscientific becausse your sound card and volume of the speakers / computer probably distorts the exact frequency

24 and can hear all frequency

With the volume turned up I can hear every last one of these frequencies. Originally I wanted to say I could only hear to 19kHz but I know I’m not crazy cause the moderator says the tones should become quieter as my soundcard tries to generate them. An they certainly become quieter. Almost too quiet for 22kHz but I still hear its ring. I’m 26, an a musician. That variable seemed to be a key for this little unscientific experiment.

52 and can only hear up to 12KHz. I guess it was all those concerts over the years but they sure were fun.

I’m hoping it was my speakers, but I have a feeling it’s these old, damaged ears of mine..
I can hear 8, 10, and 12.
Oh, age 38.
hardcore shows.

Don’t trust tests like these…

They’re using all this info to build advanced sonic weaponry for use against civilian protesters.

Eek! I knew I had better than average hearing for my age, but I’m 48 and I heard them all. The higher ones got harder to sort out of background noise, but I could hear them. When the mosquito tone first came out, I could hear it, but not any more.

My dislike of anything loud appears to have benefits.

i’m 25 and the last one i can hear is 17. My girlfriends (24) last one is 14

I’m 29 and was able to hear all of them once I cranked the volume up all the way. I will say that I could just barely hear 22 kHz and if the room I’m in wasn’t silent I probably wouldn’t have been able to.

I am late 40s and heard all of them.

I am 23. I can hear all of them at half volume on my headphones. Good news!

I try to keep my music below the damaging range and take care of my ears when I play music.

I’m 37 and could hear 20mhz. Amazing considering my wife thinks me deaf! Thank od for selective hearing.

I was very surprised with my results, especially after reading some of the other comments.

I’m in my mid 50s. I worked rock concerts during the school year when I was in college and worked construction during the summer without using any ear protection. Still, I was able to clearly hear 6-20 kHz and 21 kHz with my speakers cranked up high. It probably helps that since my mid-20s I generally haven’t been around loud noises, and I have rarely used headphones and never used them with the sound cranked up.

My father had lost all of his high hearing by his late 40s–probably from working in construction. For example, he couldn’t hear the alarm on his wrist watch and he couldn’t hear most bird songs.

Pleasantly surprised. I can hear up to 20 and I’m a 48 yr old ipod using metal head. I never crank up the sound on my buds though in an attempt to be nice to my ears.I do worry at a gig when you can feel your ears buzzing you know your doing damage so I was really glad to see I can still hear pretty well.

I am 40. My memory is not so good any more either. Thanks for the great recipe.

I’m 16, female and an avid musician. I can barely hear 20 and it completely cuts off at 21. This seems very scientific to me, perhaps you could organize this data into a study.

I’m 20 and I couldn’t hear the 12khz. I am around barking dogs at the kennel nearly all the time now. I wish the others at work knew some sign language cause then we wouldn’t have to yell over the dogs barking all the time.

57. 14. Damn. I know my hearing is trashed. I got my first big metal headphones when I was 16 so I could listen to the console stereo in the living room while my parents watched TV. Headphones were a sort of oddity in those days. By the time the rest of the world started using headphones regularly in the early 80s I’d already blown out my ears.

I’m 57, have never listened to headphones or loud music, and I think my hearing is pretty good. Better than many I know, but I can’t hear above 14. Ah well I’ll think of it this way – I might not be able to hear the extreme highs, but I hear more of the mid-range more acutely than most!!

Don’t feel bad mbm69–I’m only 20 and I can’t hear anything above 10kHz either, and I don’t even listen to my music loud!

I’m 43, I topped out at 12k and that was only in my right ear.

42 and 12k was the highest one for me. Spent years 18 – 28 playing in clubs with no ear protection, so I’m sure that contributed.

I’m 23 and a half years old and I can hear all the way to 17kHz, not bad for the guy who is using MP3 a lot.

I can’t hear 18kHz but I can feel it.

I think I’ll ask my Dad to take the test, just for fun!

Ugh. Really? You’re an “online audio magazine” and yet you don’t know about how MP3s work?

MP3s CANNOT reproduce frequencies that high. Load up your 22khz MP3 into Audacity (or similar) and perform spectral analysis. Here, I’ve done it for you:
22khz MP3: http://imgur.com/29fhd.png
22khz WAV: http://imgur.com/b2fff.png

Despite the fact that the ‘harmonics’ are quite quiet, it explains why so many people “heard them but had to turn up the volume really high”.

In addition, listening to an mp3 within your browser (or in Flash) often introduces an effect called aliasing, which is an even more pronounced version of the above. Here’s what it looks like:
21khz played via web browser: http://imgur.com/cqn4w.png

Well isn’t that a mess? If anyone heard 18+Khz loud and clear, this is most likely what they were hearing. The only way to properly test your hearing in the way you’re trying to accomplish is to get people to open up RAW WAV files in an audio program.

[...] I beg of you to either replace the MP3s with WAVs or to simply delete the entire thing. It’s dangerous.

I can hear all the way to 22. I had to turn up my speakers a bit but I can faintly hear it, very low frequency.

I’m 30 years old. I listen to music on my mp3 player a lot. I use Koss titanium headphones.
22khz sounds like a low hiss, to me.

19khz I can just start to hear it. I can hear everyone after. They sound lowder to me as I go down.

One thing that bugs me: I have always used headphones. Reciently I started using ear buds that came with my mp3 player. Even when I turn them up all the way, they do not become as loud as my head set, which I listen at half volume, at work. It’s always been a confortable level, for me. However, after prolong exposer, I feel a numbing sensation. To which I think my ears are saying please turn it down a little. My hearing also seems to vary a lot. On some days, I turn down to less than half. Example I will listen anywhere between 18 and 24 on the volume scale. 31 is the loudest the players can go.

I’m sixteen, soon to turn 17 this October. I could hear all the way up to 20. I’m listening on my laptop and I’m sure everyone knows they’re not the loudest things on the world. That, and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve dropped the darn thing and done damage to the speakers. Saying so, I really think I had potential to hear all the way to 21.

Overall, I knew I would do well because my guitar teacher stresses on the importance of being nice to the ears. I don’t use headphones, listen to loud music, or attend rock soncerts, though I would love to. :C

Kinda strange..iam 20 and heard all of them except the 19 khz?..what about the 20/21/22?..i still can hear them but not the 19..is the only one..weird…;)..anyone feeling the same?

I started looking around for hearing stuff because my earbuds KILL my ears. I was sure I wouldn’t be able to hear this, but I can hear them ALL with my speakers very low. Surprising. 22 btw.

I am 37…and ever since I have been taking “Serrapeptase”…my hearing has improved dramatically….I can hear all frequencies quite clearly now and no headphones etc…I am at a standard listening volume…they are very annoying…so I guess I am destined to live longer I guess…I drink and smoke like a fiend too…lol…just a note…on some “other” web tests…I can only hear up to the 18Khz and then it cuts out and then I can hear only the 21Khz and not the 22…I find that a bit odd…

Im 21 (v. nearly 22) and im cutting out at about 15/16khz. 15 is audible, 16 is more ‘detectable’ if I strain to hear it. This is seriously annoying cos I dj and go clubbing every week. I wear the Etymolics ER20 plugs and have been doing so for about 6-9 months. This year has been a major wake up call for me because I have developed tinnitus. Ear protection is absolutely essential, and I am upgrading to ER25′S NOW!!! Dont know if I will ever shift the T (hope so)….and im off to the audiologists tomorrow for a full check up cos music is starting to sound a little different at the high ends, becoming tinny. Please, if anybody can relate to this message me bk cos these problems became apparent only a couple of weeks ago, and im bricking it tbh. EVERYBODY WHO LOVES MUSIC….BUT SOME DAMN PLUGS!

i’m 16…i can hardly hear past 18, and 19 makes my head hurt but i can’t hear a tone (if that makes any sense), and i can catch the last bit of twenty.
so let’s call that 18.

bye bye, loud ear-buds…

called-in sick for this thing! hahaha had a headache after..
im 26 and can hear em all… btw, im a sound system techie..

I’m 56 and am able to hear tones at 18 and below, plus 21 even faintly at 22. The 19, 20, 22 had a lower frequency buzzing that almost obscured the pitch tone. I’d be amazed if I was actually hearing 18 and 21khz. I bet it’s reproducing a lower frequency. This is on a MBP with earphones and volume cranked up. I tried two different sets of phones and it made a difference. The first were Olympus that came with a voice recorder, the second were a pretty good audio set by Sony. I could hear the 22 on the Sony and not the Olympus. The buzzing was louder on the Olympus. This volume level would be way too loud to listen to music.

I could hear 10 better than 8, and “felt” rather than heard many of the others above that. Quite a few of the tones just blended in with my tinnitus, though. My highest volume of tinnitus in my left ear must be exactly 8 – I heard NOTHING (and “felt” nothing) when I listened to that frequency. 15 and 22 were easier to hear than some of the ones in between.
I am 46.

My 15 y/o daughter could hear all of them, but the 10-16 range was so loud to her that she said it hurt when at the volume that I was “feeling.” Wonder if we loose the range as we age, or if internal interference (tinnitus) simply masks it?

Hello All,

My name’s Matt. I am an audio engineer, male, age 25. I took this test a year ago. I was able to hear up to 17 without problem, 18 I heard some kind of subharmonic generation with an 18khz overtone. Over the course of the year, I had a drummer stomp his kick drum while I was moving a kick drum mic, and a studio owner turn up my volume knob without me noticing which led to a short burst of extremely loud sound. Both of these left a temporary ring in my ear. I’ve taken this test again, and heard the exact same results.

For those who worry about their hearing not going far past 16khz, I wouldn’t sweat it. First, if you’re listening to 128kb/sec audio encodings – like those downloaded off of iTunes, everything past 16 is getting filtered out. Second, the highest note at the top of a piano is C8, which is approximately 4khz. This means even if you are hearing no more than 16khz, you still will get the second, third, and fourth order harmonics on the highest note commonly used in musical composition. Lastly, the average person with EXCELLENT and completely in tact hearing will not hear any higher than 18khz. 16khz is still considered fully functional hearing.

For those who feel they can hear up to 22khz with the system cranked – this is most likely a false perception. Speakers generate their own harmonics. Turned up loud enough and with a signal passing through, you are just as likely to be hearing the electric components of your speaker system, which are generally broadband noise. Hearing requires not just the sensation of sound, but the identification of that sound. Close your eyes and have a friend play 19khz, 20khz, and 22khz in a random order and see if you can identify which tone is highest. It is EXTREMELY RARE for anyone except a young child with exceptional hearing to hear above 20khz.

The first thing to cause hearing loss is age. Second is prolonged exposure to high sound pressure levels. Third is congestive ailments and sinus pressure which is temporary. Whether or not ear buds cause hearing loss is yet to be determined. However, ear buds do a terrible job of reproducing frequencies except those in the 1khz area. You are much more likely to hear music enjoyably through headphones which have a larger diaphragm and can naturally produce a wider range of frequencies.