Hearing range by age
Nearly everyone loses the top of the range with age. Here is roughly how much, why it happens, and why it usually changes nothing.
The typical numbers
Textbooks give human hearing as 20 Hz to 20 kHz. That is a young, healthy, ideal figure, and it describes fewer adults than you would think. The bottom end holds up throughout life; the top end retreats steadily.
| Age | Upper limit often reported |
|---|---|
| Under 18 | 19–20 kHz |
| 18–24 | 17–19 kHz |
| 25–34 | 15–17 kHz |
| 35–44 | 14–16 kHz |
| 45–54 | 12–14 kHz |
| 55+ | 10–12 kHz |
Treat every row as a wide band rather than a threshold. Two people of the same age can differ by several kilohertz on the strength of their jobs, their hobbies and how many concerts they have stood at the front of. Where you land on a browser test also depends on your headphones and your volume, so it is a rough reading in any case.
Why the top goes first
Sound entering the cochlea passes the region tuned to high frequencies before reaching anywhere else. Those hair cells are therefore exposed to every sound you have ever heard, including all the low-frequency energy on its way past. They wear, and they do not regenerate.
The age-related version is called presbycusis, and it progresses from the top of the range downwards. That direction is why it goes unnoticed for so long: nothing you listen to depends on 18 kHz, so losing it changes nothing you can point to.
Noise does the same thing faster
Noise-induced loss works by the same mechanism and adds to the age-related kind. What matters is the dose — level multiplied by time — which is why occupational rules are written as an exposure limit rather than a volume limit. Roughly, each increase of 3 dB halves the time you can safely spend in a sound.
Noise-induced loss also has a signature: a notch around 4 kHz, rather than a smooth roll-off from the top. That frequency happens to be where the ear canal's own resonance concentrates energy. A clinical test finds the notch easily; a browser test cannot see it at all, because it only looks for the highest audible frequency rather than the quietest audible level at each frequency.
What actually matters
Losing the top of the range is cosmetic. Losing the 2 to 4 kHz region is not, because that is where consonants live — the difference between "sick", "thick" and "tick". Somebody with a notch there hears fine in a quiet room and struggles badly in a restaurant, which is the classic early complaint.
That is also why "I can still hear 15 kHz" is reassuring about the wrong thing. The useful question is whether you can follow a conversation with background noise, and no online test can answer it.
When to see a professional
Go if hearing changes suddenly, if ringing persists, if one ear is clearly worse than the other, if speech in noise has become hard work, or if there is pain or discharge. Sudden hearing loss in particular is treated as urgent, and the treatment window is short.
A real test is quick, painless and far more informative than anything here: each ear separately, calibrated equipment, a quiet booth, and a chart of the quietest sound you can detect at each frequency.
Protecting what you have
Nothing restores hair cells, so prevention is the only intervention that works. Good earplugs at concerts and in workshops cost very little and reduce level by 15 to 25 dB, which is the difference between a safe evening and an unsafe one. For daily listening, the useful habit is limiting time at high volume rather than chasing a specific number — and noise-cancelling headphones help mostly because they let you listen quieter on a train.
If you want to see where your own top end sits today, the hearing range test takes a few seconds. Run it on wired headphones in a quiet room, at a moderate volume you can repeat.
Last reviewed 2026-09-22.