A tone climbs from 8 kHz to 20 kHz. Wherever it disappears for you is your ear age

Why high pitches go first

The hair cells that detect high frequencies sit at the entrance of the cochlea, so every sound you have ever heard passed over them first. They wear out earliest and do not grow back. That is why hearing loss always starts at the top: teenagers hear close to 20 kHz, people in their 30s top out around 16–17 kHz, and by 50 it is usually 12–13 kHz. The effect is reliable enough that a 17 kHz "mosquito" ringtone was once sold to students as a tone their teachers could not hear.

19–20 kHz	Late teens or younger
17–18 kHz	20s
15–16 kHz	30s
13–14 kHz	40s
11–12 kHz	50s
8–10 kHz	60s and up

If your result is older than you are

Suspect the hardware first. Laptop speakers and cheap Bluetooth speakers barely reproduce anything above 16 kHz. Wired earphones are the most honest; most Bluetooth earphones still reach 20 kHz. Low volume also buries the highs first. Beyond that, years of loud earphone use knock out high frequencies regardless of age — it is the earliest sign of noise-induced hearing loss, so a reading under 14 kHz in your 20s is worth a look at your volume habits.

There are silent steps

Two of the steps play nothing at all. Tap "I hear it" on one of them and a warning is attached to your result. Very high pitches are easy to imagine rather than hear, and without this check most people score younger than they should. When in doubt, tap "Nothing" — that is the accurate answer.

What this does not measure

This only finds your upper limit. A real hearing test measures how quiet a sound you can detect at each frequency from 250 Hz to 8 kHz, which is what determines whether you can follow speech. A low upper limit often has no effect on conversation, and a good result here does not mean your hearing is normal. If your ears feel blocked or you have ringing, get a pure-tone audiogram from an audiologist.

How to take it

1. On the title screen, tap Check volume (1 kHz). A 1.2-second reference tone plays; set your device volume so it sounds comfortable — about halfway is right. Leave the volume alone for the rest of the test.
2. Press START. An 8 kHz tone plays for 2.4 seconds while the screen shows the frequency, the step counter and a waveform animation.
3. The I hear it · Nothing buttons unlock 0.7 seconds into the tone. Tap I hear it and the next frequency plays.
4. Tap Nothing on a step that is actually playing a tone and the test ends there. The last frequency you confirmed becomes your highest pitch heard.
5. The result shows your ear age, a grade and that highest pitch. If you tapped I hear it during a silent step, a warning is attached. Share sends the result as a link.

Frequency order and how the age is derived

The tone climbs through eleven steps — 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 kHz — with two silent steps slipped in, for thirteen steps in total. The silent steps land at random somewhere right after the 13–18 kHz tones, and during them the screen keeps showing the previous frequency and the same waveform, so nothing gives them away. Every tone is a pure sine wave with no harmonics, and the playback level is stepped up slightly for 12–15 kHz and again for 16 kHz and above.

Your ear age is read directly from the single highest frequency you confirmed.

Highest pitch	Ear age	Highest pitch	Ear age
20 kHz	16	14 kHz	44
19 kHz	20	13 kHz	50
18 kHz	24	12 kHz	55
17 kHz	28	10 kHz	62
16 kHz	33	8 kHz	70
15 kHz	38	Could not hear 8 kHz	75

There is no leaderboard. A test where tapping I hear it on silence raises your score cannot be ranked meaningfully; the silent steps are there to keep the answers honest instead.

Frequently asked questions

I hear nothing at all

Browsers only allow sound after you have tapped something, so playback starts with the volume check or the START button. If it stays silent after that, check the device volume, the mute switch and whether your Bluetooth earphones are actually connected. Almost everyone hears 8 kHz, so failing the very first step attaches a device-and-volume notice to the result.

I tapped during a silent step by mistake — does it change the result?

The ear age itself does not change; a warning is attached. It marks the result as less reliable, so run it once more before sharing.

Why does one Nothing end the test?

Because the frequency only ever goes up. If 15 kHz is inaudible, 16 kHz will be too, so there is no point playing the rest. If you tapped wrongly, Again starts a fresh run — the silent steps move each time.

I got two different results

Your upper limit shifts by a step with volume, how snugly the earphones sit and background noise. Same volume, same earphones, quiet room, two or three runs — the value that repeats is yours.

Related tools

• Perfect Pitch Test — not how high you hear, but whether you can name what you hear
• Rhythm Repeat — tap back the rhythm you just heard
• Dynamic Vision Test — the eyes' version of a snap judgement
• Color Vision Test — telling colours apart