Online Hearing Test — Free Screening

An online hearing test on this page plays warble tones from 125 Hz to 8 kHz one ear at a time and plots the quietest level you notice as a screening audiogram. Everything is generated locally with the Web Audio API, nothing is uploaded, and the result is education, not a diagnosis.

At a glance

Parameter	Specification
Frequencies	125 Hz–8 kHz (125, 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000 Hz)
Tone type	5 Hz warble tone (frequency modulation reduces standing waves)
Staircase method	10 dB down on heard / 5 dB up on miss (4 presentations per frequency)
Level reporting	Relative dBFS digital levels (not calibrated dB SPL or dB HL)
Testing time	Roughly 42 seconds of tones per ear (1.5 s per presentation)
Channel routing	One ear at a time (independent left and right ear screening)
Privacy & processing	Local-only Web Audio API generation (nothing uploaded or recorded)

How to use it

1. Set up and pick the first ear. Sit in the quietest room you have, wear wired headphones at a low fixed volume, and select Left. Hearing commonly differs between ears, and this page screens one ear at a time.
2. Press Play tone. Each presentation is a 1.5 s warble tone with a 30 ms click-free attack and an 80 ms release, starting at -30 dBFS. No sound plays until you press the button.
3. Answer I heard it or I did not hear it. A heard answer steps the next presentation 10 dB quieter; a miss steps it 5 dB louder. Answer what you noticed, not what you expected to notice.
4. Let the staircase finish four presentations. Seven frequencies are screened in order (125, 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000 Hz); the readout tracks the step as 1/7 through 7/7 and the trial as 1/4 through 4/4.
5. Watch the threshold lock onto the audiogram. The quietest level you marked heard locks as that frequency’s screening threshold, a marker appears on the SVG chart (circles for L, crosses for R) and the test advances. Four misses in a row record no response instead of a number.
6. Switch ears and repeat. Select Right and the page skips frequencies already locked for that ear. The tones themselves take about 42 seconds per ear (7 frequencies x 4 presentations x 1.5 s), so most of the session is thinking time.
7. Keep or clear the result. Thresholds persist in this browser only and restore on your next visit. Clear saved result erases them, and Export audiogram card renders a shareable card from the same numbers.

What the staircase measures

The staircase reports a relative screening threshold: the quietest presentation you marked heard at each frequency, expressed in dBFS, the digital level relative to full scale. From the -30 dBFS start, heard answers walk down to -40, -50 and -60 dBFS, while misses walk up in 5 dB steps toward -5 dBFS, and the locked threshold is the quietest heard presentation among the four trials.

Two properties follow. The number is relative: two people at the same slider position can get different results because their headphones, fit and ears differ, and one person on two devices can get a different set entirely because dBFS becomes SPL through headphone sensitivity and system gain. Second, four presentations give a rough staircase, not a formal threshold procedure; clinical audiometry repeats tones in a defined sequence set by ISO 8253-1.

dBFS, dB SPL and dB HL are different scales

Three decibel scales appear in hearing work, and only the first is available to a web page: dBFS measures digital samples, dB SPL measures air pressure, and dB HL measures audiometric threshold relative to a normal-hearing reference.

Scale	Reference	What 0 dB means	Can this page report it?
dBFS	Digital full scale	The largest sample value a fixed-point signal can carry; audible content sits below it	Yes. It is the only level scale a browser can honestly show
dB SPL	20 micropascals of air pressure	A pressure reference, near the faintest 1–4 kHz tone a healthy young ear detects	No. That requires a calibrated sound level meter (IEC 61672-1 class 1 or 2)
dB HL	Audiometric reference thresholds	The average threshold of otologically normal young listeners for a specified earphone model	No. That requires a calibrated audiometer and standard reference levels (ANSI/ASA S3.6)

Why browser playback is level-limited

A browser can compute a mathematically exact frequency and an exact digital amplitude, but it cannot know how loud the tone arrives at your eardrum, so every level here is a digital reference rather than an acoustic one.

The gap between dBFS and dB SPL is set by things the page cannot see: headphone sensitivity, which varies by tens of dB between models; the amplifier and volume setting; the seal and coupling of the earpiece; and any system processing in the path. Audiometric equipment is calibrated as a whole system for that reason. ANSI/ASA S3.6 defines reference threshold levels for specific transducers, and ISO 8253-1 defines test procedures, so a 30 dB HL tone means the same acoustic level in every clinic whose equipment is maintained to standard. A web page with an unknown headphone model cannot make that claim, so this tool reports dBFS and calls its output a screening signal.

Reading the screening audiogram

The audiogram draws frequency on a logarithmic x-axis from 125 Hz to 8 kHz and this page’s levels on a y-axis from -60 dBFS at the top (quiet, better threshold) to -5 dBFS at the bottom (loud).

Higher points mean you needed quieter presentations at that frequency today; circles mark the left ear and crosses the right. A flat pair of traces means similar sensitivity across the tested range today, and a dip means one frequency needed a louder presentation than its neighbours. Neither shape is a diagnosis: room noise, headphone fit, earwax, a moved volume knob and attention all shift screening thresholds. The 125–500 Hz region carries much of the low-frequency energy in speech and music, 500–4000 Hz carries most speech clarity, and 8000 Hz adds the top harmonics of cymbals and fricatives.

If the chart surprises you, retest on another day. If you are concerned about your hearing, take the saved summary to an audiologist and ask for a pure-tone audiogram in a calibrated setup.

Hearing safety and volume

Keep one volume setting for a whole ear and never raise the volume to chase a tone; the correct response to a miss is to answer I did not hear it and move on. The tones are short by design, the level meter and Stop are always available, and the click-free envelope keeps you from judging by startle.

This is an educational screening tool, not a medical test, a hearing aid fitting or a diagnosis, and it cannot detect or rule out hearing loss. If you notice a persistent change, a consistently quieter ear, sudden hearing loss, or unsettled ringing, see an audiologist or clinician rather than repeating this test.

Accuracy, limits and troubleshooting

Most of the uncertainty in this test lives in the playback chain, not in the browser code.

• Only frequency is exact. The Web Audio API renders the labelled frequency precisely; level, acoustic output and headphone response are unknown to the page.
• Keep the volume fixed. Changing it mid-ear breaks comparability between frequencies, so set it before the first tone and leave it.
• Quiet room required. Ambient noise masks the softest presentations and affects low frequencies most, inflating apparent thresholds at 125–500 Hz.
• Headphone type and fit matter. Over-ear, on-ear and in-ear models deliver very different low-frequency levels, and a poor seal leaks bass.
• OS processing can gate soft tones. Windows audio enhancements, spatial audio and voice-isolation style processing can compress or filter low-level signals; turn them off for a stable session.
• Browsers need a gesture. If Play does nothing, click once on the page and retry; some in-app browsers block Web Audio and the status line reads Unavailable.
• No masking of the other ear, no bone conduction. A loud presentation could theoretically reach the untested ear, one more reason to keep levels modest; bone-conduction and speech testing are out of scope.
• One session is not a trend. Compare saved results across days, and treat a single raised or depressed point as noise until it repeats.

Related tools

• Hearing Age Test — An 8 kHz–20 kHz exponential sweep per ear that estimates hearing age and the highest audible frequency.
• High-Frequency Hearing Test — Eight discrete tones from 8 kHz to 22 kHz with the same heard-or-not answer pattern.
• Low-Frequency Hearing Test — Seven presets from 10 Hz to 100 Hz with the speaker-limit caveat stated first.

Aliases covered on this page: online hearing test, hearing test, audiogram screening, and warble-tone hearing check. Screening only — not a medical test.