We got a lot of positive feedback on our Can You Hear Like a Teenager? article, and it inspired us to take it just a little bit further.
Check your hearing with a list of tones that go from 8Hz all the way up to 22,000Hz. It’s fairly common for people who are over 25 years of age to not be able to hear above 15kHz and also experience some level of hearing loss or hearing damage such as tinnitus. This online test will help you find out where your high frequency hearing cuts off.
Musicians have a much higher risk of hearing loss that most people do, and many of us don’t really wear proper hearing protection. Even just listening to an iPod for an extended period of time can permanently damage your hearing. We also gradually lose our high-frequency hearing as we age.
Take our online hearing test: listen to each of these tones and let us know where your hearing cuts out. Make sure to turn the volume down on your headphones or speakers and gradually turn them up to a safe level.
8 kHz
10 kHz 12 kHz 14 kHz 15 kHz 16 kHz |
17 kHz
18 kHz 19 kHz 20 kHz 21 kHz 22 kHz |
Importance of Hearing Protection
If you’re around loud music a lot like I am, or if you are experiencing some hearing loss, I highly recommend getting a pair of hearing protection earplugs.
The Etymotic earlplugs don’t muffle the sound like conventional earplugs – they basically give you the same frequency response as without, but with a bit lower volume. If I wear them out to a club, they also help me carry on a conversation without yelling. Etymotic earbuds are also great in that they isolate your ear so you don’t have to turn up the volume as much on your MP3 player (ambient noise is one of the biggest reasons we turn up the volume). I love mine.
23 and I can hear 22khz… it is a good idea to use headphones, as the type and quality of your speakers can limit what you will hear.
I am 18 now and on my left ear I can hear only until 12khz… The right one goes up till 17khz.
Well… I am a drummer, but it f*cking scares me not to hear those sounds!
i can only hear up to 20khz its crazy hard to hear tho 😛
35y male, i can hear up to 19khz with bose quiet comfort 15. the 22khz sample includes a low frequency, makes me suspicious if the samples actually are accurate or losing some of it due to compression?
67 years…I have natural pitch recognition or all notes of thescale if based on A4=440 hertz. Play trumpet and french horn and can tune them by ear. Right ear drops out at 10 left ear at 12 if volume cut up all the way. The strangest thing is that the volume increases and decreases as itgoes up but not evenly in both ears.
Maan, i can only hear up to 16, & anything after that i can not hear.
I am 17 and I can hear up to 18 kHz but barely 18. It might be my earphones though. When I was 15 I liked to blast music but now I just listen to music on an average volume, I am worried that I might be tone deaf also. 🙁
21 (f), can hear to 16 on my computer speakers but up to 18 on my headphones….already sorta knew that my hearing was degenerating- used to be able to hear people talking on a noisy bus now i gotta really lean in to hear what they’re saying. I’m a musician and love listening to music all the time, also used to go clubbing a lot…so that probably factors in too.
My grandpa is 73 years old ha ha and can only here 8kHz ha ha
Wow. It is me again and I tried with my head phone and I heard it faint.
Since my headphones block all outside sound I hear it.
Cont..
I put my head closer to my laptop speaker and I heard it clearly and loud and annoying as ever ha ha. weird.. My laptop fan goes over the speakers and so does my air conditioner. I can hear it which is a good thing.. Idk if I cheated but I can hear up to 22kHz
Omg I am 18 years old and my highest was 19kHz. Strange, I played 20kHz first and was able to hear it very faint. I played 19kHz and I heard it clear as day. then I played 20kHz again and now I am not able to hear it. WHAT IS THIS.. I am losing my hear already? I played them all after another and when I got to 19 kHz I was not able to hear it. Gave my ear some time and I played 19kHz again and sounded very faint and I was able to hear it again I played it on more time and became loud for my ear. I tried 20 again and NADA!! So weird. Did this happen to anyone else? I did not read all the comments only the first 4.
18, in a metal band, and constantly at shows. I can hear up to 18kHz very clearly, and I can FAINTLY hear 19 and 20 kHz. 21 and 22 were absolutely nothing though :-\ what a shame.
I can hear them all, but I’ll be twenty-five in three days…
Heard up to 19 on cr@ppy laptop speakers. Plugged in my earphones and heard the 22k. I’m 24 and an orchestra musician as an aside.
I am 21 and I can hear all
I’m 15 and can hear all of them but only on my headphones, and my headphones make a weird sound before and after they play. Maybe they can’t handle them? I don’t want to blow my speakers. Even my speakers’ volume change when I make the frequencies higher.
It’s actually really annoying to hear the high frequencies because I can hear my laptop charging which no one else can to the point where I unplug it because it’s so annoying. Sometimes with my friends I also hear things they can’t hear–maybe from their phones? And clutch my head because it hurts and they think I’m crazy.
…I probably am.
I’m 18 and I can only hear up to 17. Guess I should cut down on the rock concerts and loud music…
50 – 8khz is the only one I can hear!
Wish I did not know that…
Hi, I’m 16, female and I can hear them all including the 22 but I CAN’T hear the 21 one… is that normal?
I’m a 59yo female and could only hear up to 10…..incidentally, both 8 and 10 hurt my ears.
Also be sure you are using quality headphones and/or speakers.
Cheap equipment will cut off at the 15-17khz range.
Change that, I turned the volume all the way up (last time it was very low) and I can hear 19kHz is there a way I can hear higher than that with surgery (I’m 13)
I can hear 18kHz but I wanna hear higher then that. Is there any way I can improve my hearing without surgery. (btw I’m 13)
I am a 46 year old drummer. I can just about hear 12, but nothing above.
i am 12 and can hear up to 20. i think thats quite good
In fact, Human can hear from 20hz to 20khz. But, Decreased by ages.
I’m 14 years old, and hear up to 19khz.
p.s. I was listening to the test via my notebook computer speakers, so that is undoubtedly a factor.
I’m 56. I can hear up to 12 khz clearly, and can faintly hear 14 khz. But as others have mentioned, once I listen to the 14 khz, tinnitus kicks in an then everything is subsequently affected.
I’m 18 and I can hear up to 18, but I go to a bunch of concerts and places that regularly blast industrial music. Heh. I’m gonna take better care of my hearing.
I’m 15 and I can only hear up to 14kHz. I live with a father who is deaf in one ear and I also drive to school with my brother (who blasts his music really loud), so I have an excuse: exposure to loud noises.
Im 12 and can hear to 19
I’m a 15 year old girl and i could hear them all, even though 22 kHz was more like a feeling a got more than a noise a heard. I can still ‘feel’ this noise long after i stopped listening.
I’m 18, a saxophone player and a guitarist, all I can hear up to is 17… and 17 is just barely. 16 sounds fine, but 18 oh hell no!
Im 22 and I can hear 17Hz fine but I can’t hear 18Hz and up.
Im chris, 13 years old age, and can hear everything up to 15:(
I am 15 and I can hear 18 perfectly but the 19 goes really quiet and 20 is nothing :S
This is a bad test since the frequency response of everyone’s speakers is not the same. The higher you go, the lower volume of sound one’s speaker may produce. Some speakers may not produce an audible sound at the freqencies here.
it’s not about the loundness it’s about the pitch
My hearing cut off at the 18 kHz mark and I’m nineteen. I thought I had good hearing but going to concerts and listening to a lot of loud music must have had a bigger impact than I thought. Thanks for the info!
Hi im 14 and I can hear upto 20 hahahahaha
Okay so basically I could hear up to. Well I could hear something on all of them, but I had to turn up the volume on the last two since it was so faint. I mean I tested it on my cat to and he was hardly fazed so I’m just guessing it’s a lower decibel on those to make it harder to hear. That said I was in middle school physics one day when they did something similar to this but I could hear up to where I was told only dogs could. I looked them all dead in the face and told them I could hear it. I made sure they knew I was serious, I didn’t get laughed at I just got stares. I wouldn’t lie about it since I really don’t care either way I just thought it was weird I was being told this by my teacher when I could obviously hear it. I think I cut off at about 25khz that day idk. Shrugs I just thought I should share.
Should 18hz onwards sounds like a mosquito or rather a ‘pressure-like’ sound? I’m 21.
Strange, I can hear them all. Exept for 15 and 16. So I can hear 14 and less and 17 and more. Doesn´t make sense. Must be something wrong with this or what?
Im 18 and i hear 22 kHz Just fine 😀
I’m 20 and I can hear 19KHz and a tiny “something” on 20KHz…
26y male, never heard very loud music, but i did a apprenticeship in a metalshop and did some stonecutting, grinding and worked with big construction machines a couple summers.
with my lower mid end headphones there is basically nothing past 15k, and even that is much lower.
my stereo speaker (200$) on a tripath china amp go up to 16k without dropping of, 17 is pretty faint though. 18 is noticeable if i turn it up a bit, but then its just a deadly silence…
im pretty sure the D/A converter in the signal chain play a role to, im using a creative XFi titanium which is prply more designed for gaming and movies than for music…
Hello, I’m 19 and I can year 21kHz
I’m 23 going on 24 years old and I hear up to 18 kHz clearly.
im 17 and could hear 18kHz but nothing higher
and it hurt
i am 16 an i can barelly but really barelly listen to 19! i always listen to music from my ipod i go to many lives and rehearse with band sometimes i will really be deaf until i am 25 wont i ?
This test is flawed in the way that ppl will test it with so many diffrent types of sound devices, i tested it with 3 types of speakers and High-end earbuds, with the earbuds i could hear them all however with the speakers i could only hear from 15-18 depending on witch speaker