Tinnitus Frequency Test — Match Pitch

Match your tinnitus pitch with sine tones and narrowband noise, per ear, with saved matches. Educational screening, not a diagnosis. Free in your browser.

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

Matches internal subjective ear ringing by synthesizing calibrated pure tones, resonant narrowband noise, or low hums with discrete ear panning and local browser persistence for personal reference.

On this page

The tinnitus frequency matcher is an educational pitch-matching aid: it plays sine tones, narrowband noise and low hums so you can line one up with the ringing or hissing you notice, then save the result for reference. It runs entirely in this browser and is not a treatment, a diagnosis or a masking therapy.

How to use it

Work in the quietest room you have, wearing headphones at a soft level. Matching is comparison, not volume: the loudness slider opens at -30 dBFS and is capped at -6 dBFS.
Match the character before the pitch. Pure Tone (Ringing) plays a sine, Narrowband (Hiss/Steam) runs white noise through a bandpass at Q = 15, and Low Hum / Buzz plays a triangle wave at the chosen frequency.
Route the tone to the right ear. Left, Right and Both are available, and the tone is panned with a StereoPannerNode. If the ringing is genuinely one-sided, note that for a clinician rather than trying to diagnose it here.
Bracket the pitch. Presets cover 250 Hz, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14 kHz; the fine slider spans 200 Hz to 14,000 Hz in 50 Hz steps. Find a setting clearly below your perception and one clearly above, then halve the gap.
Match loudness second. Set the slider until the synthesized tone sits at about the same subjective level as your tinnitus at its quietest, then leave it. If you have to push the slider up to hear the tone, the pitch is probably wrong rather than too quiet.
Change one control at a time. Play Matching Tone runs continuously until Stop. Give each setting a few seconds; a 50 Hz step is roughly 11 cents at 8 kHz, so fine movements are hard to judge.
Save the match and re-match another day. Save Match to Device stores frequency, level, sound type, ear and timestamp in this browser only and adds a line to your tool history; Clear removes it. A second session is a better record than one perfect-looking match.

What a matched frequency means

A matched frequency is a subjective estimate: it records which synthesized tone you judged closest to your tinnitus at that moment, not the frequency your tinnitus physically is.

Pitch and loudness matching are descriptions, not measurements of cause or origin. The same tinnitus can match different tones on different days, especially above 6 kHz where pitch discrimination is coarse, and the dBFS number describes the digital gain of the tone, not the loudness inside your head. The Clinical Classification field on the page is a preset label, useful for matching because the 4 kHz band is the classic noise-notch region, and it says nothing about your ears. Treat a saved record as notes you could hand to an audiologist or ENT at an appointment, never as a finding.

What the three matching signals are

The matcher synthesizes three distinct signals because tinnitus does not always present as a pure tone: a sine, a narrow band of noise, and a triangle wave.

Matching signal	Synthesis behind it	Best suited to	Suggested starting preset
Pure Tone (Ringing)	One sine oscillator at the slider frequency	Steady tonal ringing or a whistle with clear pitch	3 kHz to 6 kHz
Narrowband (Hiss/Steam)	White noise through a bandpass at the slider frequency, Q = 15	Hiss, steam or sizzle with no clear pitch	8 kHz to 12 kHz
Low Hum / Buzz	A triangle wave at the slider frequency, harmonically richer than a sine	Low mechanical hum or rumble	250 Hz

If sine tones never fit, switch to Narrowband or Low Hum.

What masking means here

Masking is the ordinary auditory effect where one sound makes another harder to detect, and it is the concept people usually mean when tinnitus and background sound get discussed together.

Broadband noise at a modest level reduces the contrast between tinnitus and silence, which is why steady background sound sometimes changes how prominent ringing seems. This page includes narrowband noise so a hiss-like tinnitus can be matched more accurately; the noise is a matching signal here, not a therapy. Whether any sound-based approach is appropriate for you is a clinical decision, and no setting on this page is a treatment protocol. Keep playback soft and short.

Safety and clinical boundaries

A ringing ear is not the place to find out how loud a tone can go, so keep playback soft, keep sessions short, and treat one-sided, sudden or pulsatile tinnitus as a reason to contact a clinician rather than a puzzle for the slider.

The level slider is capped at -6 dBFS so the tool cannot be used as a loud sound source, and you should stop whenever a tone feels uncomfortable or the ringing feels worse afterwards. Contact an audiologist, ENT physician or clinician promptly for tinnitus that is persistent or bothersome, one-sided tinnitus, a sudden change in hearing, pulsatile tinnitus that beats with your heart, or tinnitus with vertigo or balance problems. This page is educational: it does not diagnose, treat or cure tinnitus, and it is not masking or sound therapy. Nothing here is advice about supplements, diet or treatment. If you already have a diagnosis, use the saved match as a description aid for your clinician.

Accuracy, limits and troubleshooting

Every number here is a subjective estimate rather than a measurement.

dBFS only. The level readout is relative to digital full scale, so it is not comparable to dB SPL in a clinic; it only describes the tone the page generated.
Subjective means variable. Repeat the match on another day before treating a number as stable.
Pitch resolution gets coarse at the top. A 50 Hz slider step is about 11 cents at 8 kHz but only about 6 cents at 14 kHz.
Headphones keep it controlled. A laptop speaker spreads the tone through the room and colours the noise character; headphones keep the match about one ear at a time.
Local storage only. The saved match and history line live in this browser; clearing site data or using private mode removes them.
Browsers need a gesture. If Play Matching Tone does nothing, click once in the page; some in-app browsers block Web Audio entirely.
Not a clinical pitch match. Audiologists match tinnitus with calibrated equipment and their own procedures; this page cannot substitute for that appointment.

Online Hearing Test — Screen the 125 Hz to 8 kHz range per ear if you want more context before an appointment.
High-Frequency Hearing Test — Map which high tones you notice, the same region where many tinnitus matches sit.
Noise Generator — Explore white, pink and brown noise shapes at low levels for comparison listening.

Frequently asked questions

What is tinnitus pitch and loudness matching?

Tinnitus pitch and loudness matching is an audiological procedure where an acoustic tone or filtered noise is played into the listener's ear to match the subjective frequency, sound character, and volume level of their internal tinnitus perception. In clinical audiology, pitch matching helps identify the frequency region corresponding to hair-cell hearing loss or cochlear dead regions.

Why is 4 kHz such a common tinnitus pitch?

The anatomical geometry of the adult human outer ear canal (concha and ear canal resonance) naturally amplifies sound pressure between 2.5 kHz and 4.5 kHz by up to 15–20 dB. Consequently, excessive noise exposure (concerts, power tools, gunfire) delivers the highest acoustic energy dose to cochlear hair cells tuned around 4 kHz, producing the classic 'acoustic notch' and associated 4 kHz tinnitus ring.

Can matching my tinnitus cure or treat the ringing?

No. Matching your tinnitus frequency is strictly an educational self-assessment measurement tool; it is not acoustic treatment, sound therapy, or a cure. Understanding your approximate frequency can, however, be helpful when discussing your symptoms with your audiologist or ENT physician.

When should I seek urgent medical attention for tinnitus?

You should see an otolaryngologist (ENT) or physician immediately if your tinnitus is sudden in onset, heard in only one ear (unilateral), pulsatile (beating in rhythm with your heartbeat), or accompanied by dizziness, vertigo, facial numbness, or sudden hearing loss.

What is the most common tinnitus frequency?

Most matched tinnitus sits between 3 and 8 kHz, with around 4 kHz the single most reported pitch because ear-canal resonance concentrates noise damage there. Use the matcher to explore tones near your own perception at low volume. Matching is educational screening, not a diagnosis, so discuss persistent ringing with a clinician.