Mosquito Frequency Test Tool
Play high-frequency tones from 8 kHz up to 20 kHz and find the highest pitch you can still hear — including the famous 17.4 kHz "mosquito" tone most teenagers hear but many adults can’t. A fun look at how high-frequency hearing changes with age.
🔊 Use headphones and keep the volume moderate. These are pure, piercing tones — turn your volume down before starting and raise it gently. This is for fun and curiosity, not a hearing test or medical assessment. Most laptop and phone speakers can’t reproduce tones above ~15–16 kHz, so silence often means your speakers, not your ears. If you have any concern about your hearing, see an audiologist.
Start low. High-frequency tones can feel uncomfortable — stop if they do.
Guided hearing test
We’ll play tones from low to high. For each one, tell us whether you can hear it. We stop at the first tone you can’t hear — that’s your cutoff.
Free play — sweep it yourself
Drag the slider and play a continuous tone. Slowly raise the frequency until it disappears — that point is your personal high-frequency cutoff.
Tone stopped.
Approximate age & high-frequency hearing
A rough, popular guide to the highest frequency people tend to hear by age. Individual hearing varies enormously, and your equipment matters more than this chart — treat it as entertainment, not measurement.
About the Mosquito Tone
As we age, the tiny hair cells in the inner ear that detect the highest frequencies are usually the first to lose sensitivity (a normal, gradual process called presbycusis). Teenagers can often hear up to ~17–20 kHz, while many adults over 40–50 stop hearing much above ~14–15 kHz. That difference is the basis of the "mosquito" tone.
The 17.4 kHz "Mosquito" tone became famous twice: as an anti-loitering deterrent (a device that emits a piercing high tone many adults can’t hear) and as a "teen ringtone" students used because teachers couldn’t hear it. This tool lets you test where your own high-frequency hearing drops off.
Why this is just for fun
A real hearing test (audiometry) is done in a sound-treated room with calibrated equipment across many frequencies and carefully controlled levels. This tool plays uncalibrated tones through your speakers or headphones at your volume in your room. Three things it can’t separate:
- Your equipment. Most built-in laptop/phone speakers roll off sharply above ~15–16 kHz and simply can’t produce 18–20 kHz at a useful level. "Silence" then means the speaker, not your ear.
- Your volume and room. Background noise and a low volume both raise the threshold at which you’d notice a faint high tone.
- Browser/hardware limits. Some audio paths resample or filter very high frequencies.
So a result here is a bit of fun and a relative comparison — not a measurement of your hearing health. For anything you’re worried about, see an audiologist.