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.
Hi , my name is Adriaan , im 35 years old and i can hear all of them allthough the 19khz one is really low , the 20khz,21khz,and 22khz are very clear. I use a Wireless headset AKG – T912.
Just for those who think no one can hear over 18khz.
This is indeed a very unscientific test.
I am almost 46 years old, have worked a lot in music earlier in life (concerts, pubs, dance halls where music was always very loud).
The test gives different results with different headphones on different computers. The headphones I tried with are Beyerdynamic DT770M, professional for studio use, and JVC HA-G101 headphones (much lesser quality).
The low frequencies are quite audible using an iMac with the JVC headphones and volume set at 1/3, while the upper frequencies are not audible (no matter what the volume is set at). Using the Beyerdynamic on a PC with a good soundcard, all frequencies can be heard, but the sound is really low, and in that case I had the volume put all the way up.
For making tests like this, one would have to ensure that the equipment can reproduce the sound properly. Otherwise it is just a waste of people’s time… and most people do not have quality headphones or speakers or sound cards… so this is completely futile.
If you want to settle the issue of whether or not someone can hear at 20kHz frequencies, why not make an audio file that is encoded (i.e. Morse code). If you can hear it, you should be able to translate a message as proof.
I’m 21 and heard it up to 21khz. Also heard 22khz but that sounded wrong – not as smooth as 21 or everything lower so I’m excluding this. Btw you would need studio equipment to reliably test this. 🙂
Anyways, for the folks wondering: there are hair cells in your ears. They are the things responsible for hearing – each cell for one hz. There are those born with less or more so it’s possible to hear above 20khz.
With akg k701 headphone (10-39800Hz).
I did a bit of reasearch, prompted by the argument of not being able to hear over 20,000hz, seeing as i could tell there was sound being generated when i was playing a 22khz sound. I came up with this found in a study.
“Hearing or audition is the sense of sound perception and results from tiny hair fibres in the inner ear detecting the motion of atmospheric particles within (at best) a range of 20 to 20000 Hz. Sound can also be detected as vibration by tactition. Lower and higher frequencies than can be heard are detected this way only.”
Essentially this states that the human ear cannot hear over 20khz, but it can still detect sound. you will not hear the frequency, but you will know that a sound is being made. Similar to hearing people speak in another room, you will know there is sound, but you wont hear the words.
I am 31 and can hear up to 18kHz. My wife introduced me to this a few days ago because she is going over this in her 5th grade science class. My wife is 26 and can only hear up to I believe 16kHz. I mean it might be possible that I could hear the next step if I was to use higher quality headphones, but I doubt it. Now I have a headache…
You MIGHT be able to hear sounds above 20 khz. Those are, however, not the sounds for the test, but rather the noise of your headphones/speakers trying the match it through the output. As long as the tone doesn’t “scar” in your ears, giving you an odd, painlike feeling, you CAN NOT hear those sounds. Stop imagining yourselves being “unique”, bullsh****rs.
LOL…well yea…First off (26, hear them all rather clear, wearing Sennheiser 380pro) which well let me explain to all these naysayers. I don’t see any audio engineers in the crowd either, which I am not. I do produce music though.
FIRST VALID POINT: We have no clue what decibel level (which creates sound pressure) these frequencies are given to us at. Which could quite possibly be ruining the true essence of this “unscientific hearing test”
SECOND VALID POINT: (FOR JAKE THE “SCIENTIST AT CALTECH..>LMAO)(me: high school graduate) You’ve studied 6 years of science? :o….and you have no clue what an ectomorph is? Nor that these types of individuals have a tendency to favor large nervous systems…and oversensitivity? Oversensitivity which equals impeccable hearing levels? (Beyond the 20kHZ you so boldly state is the LIMIT!!) LOL…blah
THIRD VALID POINT: SUPERIOR HEARING DOES NOT EQUATE TO DEFINING SOMEONE AS “SUPER HUMAN” LMAO!!!!!!!!!
Go see a doctor…have him put you in that booth…give you the test that (IS SCIENTIFIC) and well go from there lol…cause this is rubbish and is more than likely created to get banter and entertain someone. Peace (on earth) \\//
I’ve read that humans can only hear from 20hz-20khz, and my music teacher told me aswell. I was surprised when i hear all of those, even 22khz.
I’m using Adam A3X speakers. The speakers frequency response is 60hz-50khz.
How can it be possible?
Btw. Im 16…
Hi
I’m 50 and a sound recorder..BUT I do not hear above 10Khz (tried two different tests no 🙁 )and that is really sad.. So take care of your hearing!
Using Sennheiser PX200-ii which should be good enough for this test..
Stein, Norway
I am 12 and i have to turn my headset up to the max to hear 19 and 20 but cant hear 21 or 22
If your saying your not supposed to hear anything on 20 and higher then why can I?…What scares me is that 22 is always ringing in my ears. I used to get really huge migrains but i stopped getting them when i started playing music. It made me feel better. In a loud area i cant hear it and in a crowded area or small room if i focus on the tone i can hear it but when in complete silence Its clearly always there. i was worried that maybe im going deaf but i can hear every thing else just fine. Now im laughing thinking i have super hearing. But i dont really know what else to say.
There’s something wrong with these files. Through earphones, why can I hear 18 clearly, but not 17?
I can also hear 21, but only at the beginning and end of the file. I don’t think I’m a super-human– I think the file is either mislabeled or corrupted.
This could be the cause for confusion.
Im 14 and can hear till 16kHz
I am 11 and I can hear all of them…
I am 43 and I can hear till 12 kHz.
I’m 17 and could only hear up to 15khz…anything above that was completely silent even on full volume. Doesn’t surprise me though, I have hearing loss in both ears.
I’m 18 years old, I can only go until 16khz, but I’ve never used earphones nor do i listen to loud music.
Well, I’m 17 and it seems that according to people here, 20khz is the peak of our hearing: AS A BABY. And i can hear u to 19khz, so if that information is true, I’m doing all right.
I’m 87 years old and can hear everything, this gave my wife a stroke, i am ROFL at her, lol the nurse is here she is shouting at me ROFL.
I’m 30 years old and could hear through the 16kHz, I thought my hearing was better than that since I can hear many high pitched sounds that my friends can’t hear. I also noticed that some of the frequencies higher than 16kHz, even though I couldn’t hear them, caused physical discomfort in my ears.
For some reason the 22kHz was coming out of my subwoofer at a really low frequency.
40 years old – I could just BARELY hear 14khz. Fortunately for me, most of the music I listen to doesn’t include dog whistles.
Hallo, I’m 47 and I have BIG ear problems, it didn’t surprise me that I can hear clearly just up to 8 khz, then a dimmed 10khz and a supposed-to-be 12. From 14 and beyond, the abyss……….I hope dr.Geller will announce someday the cochlea can be regenerated……
I am 25 years old male, i can here up to 19khz with earphone, the strange thing is i can not hear 20 and 21 khz but i can here 22 khz one!!
without earphone and just with speaker i can here up to 16khz!
Actually for all of you who say the human ear cannot hear above 20 kHz, you’re wrong. The average human can hear up to 21 kHz until he or she 16 and up to 22 kHz until he or she is 11. So stop harassing this person, because you’re wrong.
I heard NOTHING at 17kHz.
I’m a 42 year old female.
im 12 and i can hear up to 14hz, i really have bad hearing , but i dont know why ? 🙁
Maybe Your have poor earphones/speakers/etc. ? Don’t panic, ask parents to do this test in same equipment and compare results.
Hey I’m a musician. I play Sousaphone in my high school marching band. Contra in a Drum and Bugle Corps. Trombone in an symphonic orchestra a wind symphony and a Big Band. I can’t hear anything after 16kHz. I do not wear any hearing protection and that’s probably the problem.
I’m 24 and I can near up to 19 kHz 🙂
I’m 29 and I hear up to 17 Khz with my right ear and 18Khz with my left ear. Anything we can do to preserve our range?
I am 21 years old. I used to be able to hear up to 22 kHz, but because of my mother constantly turning up the TV to a very loud volume and because I live next to a railroad and hear trains passing by constantly, my hearing has decreased to being able to only hear around 15 kHz and 18 kHz. I want to be able to hear like a teenager again.
I can hear up to 14 bang on what I should I thinkk for 40 but suprised as my eardrums have burst 3 times and was thinking I must have a lot of hearing loss due to this. Hats of to anyone hearing over 20, initially heard a sharp noise for fifteen then disappeared so dont count it.
I’m 13 and I hear up to 15. I lose it at 16. Is this bad? A I going deaf? I don’t listen to loud music and I never listen to music on my IPod. Please someone. Help me. I don’t know if I’m OK.
Im 16 i can just hear 18 barely, i think my Ipod has f***ed my ears
I have a degree in audio engineering and going to get one in multimedia soon. I am 20 and I can barely hear the 19 it’s soft and quite. Though my family has a very weird genetic mutation of the ear drum it self, I can hardly wear earphones I have to have the plastic molded to my ear in order to fit it. Though I am on a mac, and yes I hate to say it, but mac’s have the worst sound cards unless you have a hackintosh.
Experience in the studio five years.
Experience as a DJ seven years.
Trying to out do each other in a b*llsh*t contest priceless, for everything else theirs MasterCard.
I had to do it.
I’m a 15 year old percussionist that deals with high frequency noise a lot, I could only *clearly* hear up to 17. Can’t hear 18, but I can clearly hear 19, even if it’s a little faint, and it’s definietely higher than the 17, but after 19, there’s nothing. I use earlplugs when I can if I have to play bells or crotales (really high pitched percussion instruments) and also when playing xylophone, which I currently play 3 days a week.
OK so i was testing my left ear to see how far it can still hear (after recently damaging it) and i can still hear something in every test. whether or not its actually 21 or 22kHz or just electric noise, i cant be sure as I have no reference for what these actually sound like. The strange thing is that i know i have lost higher frequency sound in my left ear. I’ve tested with various instruments on both ears and i’m certain that things like drum symbols don’t produce the highs they used to. This scares the hell out of me as a recording artist because one the most beautiful things I’ve ever experienced is getting a mix to sound amazing in stereo. I’m afraid I’ve lost this ability… 🙁
I knew I had some hearing loss but I didn’t know it was that bad. I could only hear up to 12 kHz (I couldn’t hear 14 kHz at all) and I’m only 33 years old. I did listen to very loud music in my younger years from listening to my Walkman, going to concerts, clubs & bars and I still listen to music loud in my car. I did have tubes in my ears at 6 months of age. According to an ENT doctor I have a lot of scar tissue in my ears – & I was told that at age 16! I guess the moral of the story is to turn the music down.
Hi all,
Thanks for the test, it’s very interesting. I’m 28 and could hear, just barely, with volume all the way up, the 18 kHz frequency. 17 was clear, for 18 I had to crank the volume, and still it was more like I perceived, on the verge of my senses, or kind of felt the sound than actually hearing it. On low volume I did not hear it.
PC was an Asus laptop, with a Sennheiser HD201 budget headphones plugged into it.
I do listen to music either with them or an Ipod with sennheiser cx300s, sometimes I fear loudly, but mostly paying attention to avoid it. That being said, I screwed up the 128kbps vs 320 kbps test, lol.
L
I’m scared. I’m 14, I listen to music on a daily bases and loud, too.
I can only hear up to 16, but maybe it’s just because my volume isn’t all the way up. I don’t really have any other symptoms, though, I can hear everyone talking loud and clear. Unless they mumble.
I’m 53 and wah! I fall off starting at 8 and with good speakers can here 14 if it’s loud enough. I’m also one of the unlucky ones that developed tinnitus (ringing of the ears) this year. It’s really internal feedback as your brain turns up the gain to compensate for declining sensors. Actually, I have it intermittently, at about 12KHz: I don’t have it for a couple of days, then I’ll have it for a couple. Sometimes it goes away for up to 5 days. It’s slowly declining in volume and so it now only bothers me when it gets high which is about once a month now.
No known cure … my father who is 94 and has terrible hearing had it for a year 40 years ago. My ENT said he had roaring sound for 10 years and then woke up one day and it was gone. Brain adjusting its parameters. We’ll see if mine ever goes completely away … or maybe they’ll cure it in a decade or 3.
Wait, so no one else could hear 22khz easily? Is it bad I can hear it clearly?
I used to, five years ago.
Well, as JB noted on July 29th, 2011, this test IS SPECTACULARLY UNSCIENTIFIC. He is right on when he says this test depends on your setup. If you hear something above 20K, you are most likely hearing harmonics generated by your setup.
I am a computer technician and a musician, and absolutely NO netbook has a “high quality sound card.” Fancy headphones/earbuds make no difference if the sound subsystem (and codecs) in your computer don’t work properly. My son’s computer uses a motherboard with an integrated (read cheap) sound system. When he played the tones above 12K, I could hear sound all the way up to and including 22K. They were obviously harmonics as there is NO WAY I could hear freqs that high and to me, the some of the sounds were lower in pitch that 12K. Harmonics.
I tried this test using my Gateway MD2614U laptop. It has decent sound and I could hear up to 12K. I’m 53. I hear the speaker click when it becomes active at 14K, but no sound. I hear nothing at all above that. I had a co-worker listen and he is 35 and he could hear 14K but nothing above that.
I did like the info about tinnitus though. All these years, I thought I had it because I hear the high frequency sounds when I am in a quiet area. I didn’t realize that was normal.
Update: I tried this test again using the output from my laptop going through my Marantz receiver then to my cheap Philips headphones. The 8K sound was so loud, that my 18 year old son heard it in his bedroom, 20 feet away with the door closed. Using this setup, with the added volume boost, I could clearly hear the 14K tone, the 15K tone, and possibly the 16K tone.
Above that, I either can’t hear a tone or I hear harmonics. I’m going to have my son try this next. It is useful to find out how good your sound system performs too.
The quality of the speakers/earphones, the proximity of your ear to the speakers/earphones are also important, and believe it or not, the angle of your ear to the speaker.
With my average quality earphones, I could not hear the notorious “mosquito” tone. But using my friend’s very high quality earphones I could hear it.
Having my Macbook pro on the desk, I could hear up to 15kHz. Putting my ear right up to the speakers, I could hear up to 17kHz.
And with 18kHz and 19kHz, depending on what angle my ear was to the speaker, I could sometimes hear them, and sometimes not.
BTW: I’m 44.
Please remember that you need to give your ears a rest. Hearing damage occurs when exposed to loud volumes for extended periods. Running a lawn mower or listening to music through headphone may be ok for a half hour, but if you’re hearing loud sounds for over a few hours you will probable cause some damage.
I can only hear up to 12 kHz. I’m an award winning musician, tour around North America, and spend a lot of time in the recording studio.
Hi Im 22 years old and i have studied music tech level 3 and HND. I am currently on my last year in PHD Sonic Science and i can verify us humans can hear below 20hz and above 20khz this is just an average scale most of us can hear, some humans have been recorded responding to sounds at 16hz and 24khz, several monks have also responded to ultra sonic sounds like 50khz and more! I can currently only hear 19hz at a push.
i am 18 and can only hear up to 17 khz, above that I can only hear a tiny amount of background noice (crackling)when I put my headset up to full
well I checked and all headsets and speakers I have go from 1000 HZ to 20 KHZ it saids so on the box and sometimes on the back of a speaker
Age 64. Cuts off above 10kHz
I am 14. I can hear them all up to 18. Well, I can hear 19 and up, but just the click at the end, not the static itself. I’m also trying to listen to these WHILE my sister is playing a flute. :/
i’m 23 and cannot hear past 15 kHz …not bad i guess 🙂