Frequency Sweep / Hearing Range
Step through the audible range and find where you stop hearing — and what that does not mean.
Volume warning
This test plays tones that can be loud and may damage hearing or speakers. Turn your volume down before starting, then raise it gradually.
How this test works
Discrete tones are played at fixed frequencies from 20 Hz to 20 kHz and you mark the ones you can hear. Stepped rather than swept, because a continuous sweep makes it very hard to say where the sound actually stopped — it fades, and the ear fills in. Every tone is a pure sine so nothing you hear can be a harmonic of something lower, which is the trap in testing high frequencies through small speakers: a driver that cannot reproduce 17 kHz may still make an audible noise at 17 kHz through distortion. The tool asks whether you are on headphones because without them the upper limit you find is far more likely to be the speaker than your ears.
What the results mean
- Highest heard
- The top tone you marked. Compare against age expectations, not against the textbook 20 kHz.
- Lowest heard
- The bottom tone you marked. On speakers this is nearly always a limit of the driver rather than of hearing.
- Output
- Headphones or speakers. On speakers the result is reported as likely equipment-limited above 14 kHz.
- Hearing assessment
- Reported as not provided. This test cannot see the kind of loss that matters.
Common problems and fixes
- I cannot hear anything above 15 kHz
- If you are on speakers that is probably the speakers. If you are on headphones and over about thirty-five, it is entirely ordinary — high-frequency hearing declines from the late teens onward.
- The low tones are silent
- Almost no laptop or phone speaker moves enough air below about 80 Hz. You may feel 20 Hz on a subwoofer rather than hear it.
- I hear a tone but it sounds like noise
- That is distortion rather than the tone. Small drivers pushed at frequencies they cannot reproduce make an audible noise that is not the fundamental — turn the volume down and see if it disappears.
Frequently asked questions
Is this a hearing test?
No. It cannot detect hearing loss and should not be used to rule it out. Loss that matters shows up across the speech range, 500 Hz to 4 kHz, and needs a calibrated audiogram in a quiet booth. This measures the top of your range through uncalibrated equipment.
Why can I not hear 20 kHz?
Almost nobody past their teens can, and the textbook range describes an ideal young ear rather than a typical one. It is also likely your equipment: most headphones roll off before 20 kHz and most speakers well before that.
Should I be worried about losing high frequencies?
On its own, no — the decline is universal and begins in the late teens. Difficulty following speech in a noisy room is the symptom worth acting on, and this test cannot see it.