Hearing Age Test — How Old Are Your Ears?
How old are your ears? Test your hearing age for free with an 8 kHz-20 kHz sweep. Find your highest audible frequency and get an instant ear age result.
Tool controls
Protect your hearing. Start at a low volume. Never raise the volume to make a tone audible. Levels are shown in dBFS, relative to full scale — not SPL.
How it works
An exponential 8 kHz to 20 kHz sweep over 18 seconds per ear (capped below the device's Nyquist limit), captured to 1 Hz when you stop and mapped to the published hearing-age scale. Screening only.
On this page
Test your hearing age with a guided sweep from 8 kHz to 20 kHz and an estimate in years. The page plays an exponential tone rise for 18 seconds per ear through the Web Audio API, captures the frequency where it disappears, and builds an auditory acuity report locally: nothing is recorded and nothing leaves your browser.
How to use it
- Wear wired headphones in a quiet room. Bluetooth codecs and laptop speakers often roll off above roughly 14 kHz, and the 16 kHz check in step 3 exposes that before you run a sweep.
- Press Start test and calibrate. A 1000 Hz reference tone plays for 3 seconds. Move the volume slider until the tone is clearly audible and comfortable; the slider maps to an amplitude gain from 0.04 to 0.20, a digital ceiling near −14 dBFS, and the sweep reuses that level.
- Choose Left or Right, then listen to the check. Three short tones at 8, 12 and 16 kHz confirm that your headphones reproduce the range; all three should be audible.
- Press Start sweep. The tone climbs from 8 kHz toward 20 kHz over 18 seconds while the page reports live frequency, a live age estimate and progress as a percentage.
- Stop at the first silent moment. Press I can’t hear it — stop, or Space or Enter, the instant the tone disappears. The frequency at that click is captured to 1 Hz; a late press reports a higher threshold, so press at the first moment of silence rather than waiting to be sure.
- Read the report, then test the other ear. The card shows both thresholds, the archetype band, the 17.4 kHz landmark and a shareable image. The Test the Left ear or Test the Right ear button runs the second sweep, and the better threshold drives the headline age.
What the sweep measures
The sweep is exponential, so the tone spends equal time on equal frequency ratios: of the 18-second run, the last 2.7 seconds sit between 17.4 kHz and 20 kHz.
The oscillator is a sine wave whose frequency follows f(t) = 8000 × (top / 8000)^(t / 18), and the captured value comes from the same function, so the tone you hear and the number in the report agree. The top of the sweep is min(20 kHz, sampleRate / 2 − 1000 Hz): a 44.1 or 48 kHz output allows the full 20 kHz, while a 32 kHz output stops at 15 kHz and the page prints the ceiling.
Pressing stop reads the audio clock and rounds the current frequency to the nearest 1 Hz. The result is one number per ear: the highest frequency you still heard.
Reading your result
The age estimate is read from a published anchor table rather than a questionnaire. Ten anchors map audible frequency onto age; the page interpolates between them in log-frequency and rounds to a whole year between 14 and 65.
| Audible up to | Estimated age | Archetype |
|---|---|---|
| 20.0 kHz | 14 | Apex Acuity |
| 19.0 kHz | 18 | Apex Acuity |
| 18.0 kHz | 20 | Mosquito Slayer |
| 17.4 kHz | 25 | Mosquito Slayer |
| 16.0 kHz | 30 | Studio Master |
| 15.0 kHz | 35 | Hi-Fi Veteran |
| 14.0 kHz | 40 | Hi-Fi Veteran |
| 12.0 kHz | 50 | Acoustic Sage |
| 10.0 kHz | 60 | Conversationalist |
| 8.0 kHz | 65 | Conversationalist |
Between the anchors the page interpolates the frequency ratio and rounds to the nearest year. The band names are coarser: Apex Acuity at 19 kHz and above, Mosquito Slayer from 17.4 to 18.9 kHz, Studio Master from 16 to 17.3 kHz, Hi-Fi Veteran from 14 to 15.9 kHz, Acoustic Sage from 12 to 13.9 kHz, and Conversationalist below 12 kHz.
Why the scale is a screening landmark, not an audiogram
Age-related high-frequency loss is a population trend, not a personal timetable. ISO 7029:2017 describes the statistical distribution of hearing thresholds for otologically normal listeners, but its main tables cover 125 Hz to 8 kHz and this test has no level calibration, so the scale is a direction rather than an audiometric result.
The 17.4 kHz landmark
17.4 kHz is the frequency of the Mosquito tone, a 2005 deterrent tone that later became a ringtone, and it survives as shorthand for young-adult acuity because age-related loss reaches the top octave first.
Hearing safety and volume
The sweep’s digital peak is an amplitude gain of 0.2, about −14 dBFS, and dBFS describes the signal inside the browser rather than the sound pressure at your eardrum: headphone sensitivity and system volume decide the real level.
- Never raise the volume to force a high tone into audibility. Loud sound can damage hearing without a pain signal, and a threshold produced that way is an equipment result, not a hearing result.
- Stop if the tone is piercing or tiring. Take a break and rerun later; an uncomfortable sweep is not a better measurement.
- This is an educational screening, not a medical test. It cannot produce dB HL audiometric thresholds, and if you are concerned about your hearing, see an audiologist rather than repeating the sweep.
Accuracy, limits and troubleshooting
- Bluetooth and small speakers. Many codecs and laptop drivers roll off steeply above 14 kHz, so a silent 16 kHz check is a hardware warning rather than a hearing result. Switch to wired headphones before trusting the number.
- One sweep is a snapshot. Congestion, earwax, background noise and fatigue can move a result by a band or more. Test at a similar time of day when you compare runs.
- No level calibration. The 1000 Hz reference sets comfort, not a known dB SPL, so the report cannot be compared with audiometric thresholds.
- Device ceiling. The top of the sweep is one kHz below the Nyquist frequency; on a 32 kHz output it stops at 15 kHz and tells you so.
- Timing error on the stop. A late press reports a higher frequency and a younger age. Press at the first moment of silence, then let the report stand.
- One ear at a time. Only the selected ear plays, and the second threshold comes from running the sweep again.
- Audio unavailable. If the browser does not provide Web Audio, the page says so and points to the fixed-frequency tests instead.
Related tools
- Mosquito Tone Test — Play the 17.4 kHz landmark tone and compare your threshold directly against it.
- High-Frequency Hearing Test — Step through fixed tones from 8 kHz to 22 kHz when you want individual frequencies rather than a sweep.
- Hearing Test — Work through warble tones from 125 Hz to 8 kHz at stepped levels and map the lower range.
Frequently asked questions
How accurate is an online hearing age test?
It is a screening estimate, not an audiogram. One 18-second sweep per ear, played through unknown headphones at an uncalibrated volume, cannot separate your cochlea from your hardware. It is honest about direction and the 17.4 kHz landmark, and it is a good reason to see an audiologist if something feels off.
When exactly do I press stop?
Press stop at the first moment the rising tone disappears for you — that is the highest frequency you can still hear, and it becomes your estimated hearing age. Do not wait, and do not raise the volume to chase it. If you can still hear the tone all the way to the top of the sweep, you get the youngest band.
Does it work with Bluetooth headphones or laptop speakers?
Often not, and that is the most common reason for a disappointing result. Bluetooth codecs and small speakers frequently roll off or cannot reproduce anything above roughly 14–16 kHz, so the tone disappears too early and you end up measuring your equipment. Before the sweep, three short tones at 8, 12 and 16 kHz confirm your headphones can reproduce the range; if the 16 kHz check is silent, treat a low result with suspicion and switch to wired headphones.
Why does the sweep start at 8 kHz and stop at 20 kHz?
It starts at 8 kHz because almost everyone can hear that, so the test begins with a tone you can definitely hear and ends where your hearing ends. The top is 20 kHz rather than 22 kHz because most browsers run at a 44.1 or 48 kHz sample rate and a digital signal cannot reproduce frequencies near half its sample rate. The sweep caps itself below your device's Nyquist limit, and the page tells you when the ceiling is lower.
What is the 17.4 kHz Mosquito tone?
The Mosquito tone is a high-frequency sound popularized in 2005 as a teenage loitering deterrent and later as the 'Teen Buzz' ringtone. Because age-related hearing loss begins with the highest frequencies, most people over 25 lose sensitivity above 16–17 kHz, which is why the tone became a hearing-age shorthand.
Can I test both ears?
Yes. Test one ear, then use the 'test the other ear' button. The report shows both thresholds and uses the better ear for the headline hearing age, the same convention screening tests use.