Test your hearing, ear by ear.
A guided online hearing screening: calibrate a comfortable level, then find the quietest tone each ear can hear across six standard frequencies. You get an audiogram-style chart and a plain-language summary — all in your browser, nothing uploaded. It is a screening, not a medical diagnosis.
Put on headphones, find a quiet room, and answer honestly — did you hear the tone or not?
Online hearing test.
Before you start
- Use wired headphonesPer-ear testing only works if each ear hears its own channel. Wired over-ear or in-ear headphones isolate best; Bluetooth adds codec roll-off that dulls the highest tones.
- Find a quiet roomBackground noise raises the quietest level you can detect and makes your ears look worse than they are. Kill fans, music, and traffic first.
- Set a moderate volumeThe calibration step fixes a comfortable baseline. Don't crank the system to maximum — that only adds distortion and risk, not accuracy.
- Answer honestly"Did I really hear it, or did I expect it?" Only count a tone you actually perceive. Guessing inflates your result and defeats the point.
How to take the hearing test
- 1Calibrate. Play the 1 kHz reference and raise your device volume until it's clearly comfortable — like normal speech. This baseline is why the result is relative, not clinical.
- 2Test the left ear. A tone plays only in your left ear. Press I hear it or I don't. The level steps down while you hear it and back up when you don't, homing in on your quietest audible level.
- 3Work through the frequencies. The test walks 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000 and 8000 Hz for each ear, then repeats the whole run for the right ear. It's deliberately quick — a couple of reversals per tone.
- 4Read your audiogram. The chart plots the quietest level each ear needed. Compare the two lines, check them against the shaded typical band, and read the plain-language summary. For anything that looks off, retest with better headphones — then see a professional.
How this hearing screening works
A real audiometer plays calibrated pure tones at known sound-pressure levels and finds your threshold — the quietest level you can just detect — at each frequency. This tool mimics the method with the Web Audio API: it synthesizes a pure sine, pans it fully to one ear, and runs a short staircase — lowering the level while you hear the tone, raising it when you don't, until it brackets your threshold. Two or three of those direction changes is enough to estimate the quietest level you needed.
The catch is calibration. Your headphones, your DAC, and your volume knob are all unknowns, so the tool can't say "you hear 20 dB HL." What it can do is compare your ears to each other and compare frequencies within your own setup — a left-versus-right gap or a steep drop at 8 kHz shows up clearly even on uncalibrated gear. That relative picture is what makes a browser screening genuinely useful: it flags patterns worth a professional test, without pretending to be one.
When a hearing screening helps
A quick self-check
Curious whether both ears still catch the high notes? Five minutes here gives you a rough picture before deciding whether a clinic visit is worth it.
One ear feels off
If sound seems quieter or duller on one side, a left/right comparison is exactly what this test is good at — asymmetry is the clearest thing it can surface.
After loud exposure
Concerts, power tools, or a shift on a loud floor can leave a temporary dip. Screen now, then again after rest, to see whether it recovers.
Tracking over time
Run it on the same headphones every few months. Absolute numbers drift with gear, but a widening gap between ears is worth noticing.
Before an audiologist visit
Arriving with a rough idea of which frequencies feel weak helps you describe the problem — even though the clinic's calibrated test is the real measurement.
Testing kids' curiosity
Younger ears often hear far higher than adults'. Pair this with the hearing age test for a fun, shareable version.
Reading your result honestly
A browser hearing test is easy to over-interpret. Here's what each pattern does and doesn't mean:
A gap between your ears
The most trustworthy signal this tool produces. Both ears share the same headphones and volume, so a consistent one-sided difference is a real asymmetry, not a calibration artefact.
→ If one ear repeatedly needs more level across several frequencies, book a calibrated test — sudden or one-sided loss deserves attention.
A steep drop at 8 kHz
High-frequency roll-off is the classic pattern of age (presbycusis) and noise exposure — but Bluetooth codecs and cheap earbuds also roll off up top and mimic it.
→ Retest on wired headphones. If the high-frequency drop persists on good gear, it's worth a professional check.
Both ears look "weak" everywhere
Usually the setup, not you: low system volume during calibration, a noisy room, or laptop speakers instead of headphones raise every threshold at once.
→ Recalibrate louder, silence the room, switch to wired headphones, and run it again before drawing conclusions.
A tone you never heard
At the highest frequency the limit can be your hardware — a 44.1 kHz output or a Bluetooth codec simply can't deliver a clean 8 kHz+ tone at a low level on some devices.
→ Treat an unheard high tone as "inconclusive" on consumer gear rather than proof of loss; a clinic uses calibrated transducers.
Hearing test glossary
- Audiogram
- A graph of hearing threshold versus frequency, one line per ear. Clinics plot it in dB HL; this tool plots a relative version of the same idea.
- Threshold
- The quietest level you can just detect at a given frequency. Lower thresholds mean more sensitive hearing.
- Frequency
- Pitch, in hertz (Hz). Low tones (250 Hz) are bass; high tones (8 kHz) are the treble that fades first with age.
- dB HL
- Decibels "hearing level" — the calibrated scale clinics use, referenced to normal hearing. A home test can't produce true dB HL because the gear is uncalibrated.
- Presbycusis
- Age-related hearing loss, which typically starts at the highest frequencies and works downward over decades.
- Staircase
- The up-down level procedure that brackets your threshold: quieter while you hear it, louder when you don't, until it settles.
Hearing test FAQ
Is this online hearing test accurate?
It's an accurate screening, not a clinical measurement. Because your headphones, sound card, and volume are uncalibrated, the tool can't tell you your hearing in true dB HL. What it does reliably is compare your two ears and compare frequencies within your own setup, so patterns like a one-sided difference or a high-frequency drop show up clearly. Use it to decide whether a real audiologist appointment is worth booking — not as a diagnosis.
Do I need headphones for the hearing test?
Yes, and ideally wired ones. The test plays each tone in a single ear, and laptop or phone speakers leak sound to both ears, which destroys the per-ear result. Wired over-ear or in-ear headphones give the cleanest channel separation. Bluetooth works but its codecs roll off the highest frequencies, so an 8 kHz result over Bluetooth can look worse than your ears really are.
Why is the result "relative" and not a real audiogram?
A clinical audiogram uses calibrated transducers so a "20 dB HL" tone is a known physical loudness. In a browser, the loudness that reaches your eardrum depends on your specific headphones and volume setting, which the page can't know. So instead of absolute numbers, the calibration step anchors everything to a comfortable baseline you set, and the result compares ears and frequencies against that baseline. That relative comparison is genuinely informative even though the absolute level isn't calibrated.
What frequencies does the test cover?
Six standard audiometric frequencies: 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000 and 8000 Hz. These span the range clinics test most and cover speech-critical pitches (around 500–4000 Hz) plus the high frequencies (4–8 kHz) that fade first with age and noise. Each frequency is tested separately in each ear.
My high-frequency result looks bad. Should I worry?
Not from this test alone. High-frequency roll-off is the single most common thing to over-read here, because consumer headphones, cheap earbuds, and Bluetooth codecs all attenuate the top end and mimic real loss. Retest on good wired headphones in a quiet room first. If a genuine drop at 4–8 kHz persists across better gear — or if you also notice ringing, muffled speech, or trouble in noisy places — that's a reason to see an audiologist, who can measure it properly.
Can a hearing test damage my ears?
Not at sensible volumes — the tones are ordinary audio at levels you set to be comfortable. The only risk is cranking your system to maximum "to be sure," which is both unnecessary and uncomfortable. Calibrate to normal-conversation loudness and let the staircase find your threshold from there; louder does not mean more accurate.
Is this hearing test free and private?
Completely. Every tone is generated in your browser with the Web Audio API, nothing is recorded, and no result ever leaves your device — there's no upload, no account, and no tracking of your answers. You can screen your hearing and close the tab with nothing left behind. If you want to go further, pair it with the hearing age test or a precise tone generator.