Think that your hearing range isn’t perfect? It’s probably a good idea to see a hearing professional for a full hearing examination. Lower frequency sounds like the rumbling of a truck engine are easier to hear for the person with this audiogram. The person with this audiogram has a hearing loss in his left ear that prevents him from hearing sounds like the faucet or birdsong. Here are some common sounds plotted on a standard audiogram: Birdsong has a higher frequency while tubas have a lower frequency. This is important to know because each sound you hear has a certain frequency. Your audiogram can tell you a lot about your hearing, including the frequencies you can hear and the volume you can hear them at. This threshold is plotted for both your ears as two separate lines on your audiogram. This test shows your hearing “threshold” or the point where you can’t hear any more. The professional will then repeat this with sounds of lower or higher frequencies. The professional will usually start with a level you can hear and then turn down the volume each time until you can’t hear it.
To find out your level of hearing, a hearing professional will play a series of beeps and ask you to raise your hand or press a button when you can hear them. The area below the line shows the levels of hearing loss that this person can hear and the area above the line shows the levels that the person can’t hear. The left ear is plotted with a black line. The white line shows the level of hearing of a person’s right ear. Hearing professionals use the audiogram to establish your hearing loss and as a tool for fitting hearing aids. Your hearing test results are plotted on a graph and then compared with that of a person with normal levels of hearing. An audiogram is a chart that shows the results of your hearing test. To figure out your specific hearing range, a hearing professional will perform a hearing test and plot your results on an audiogram. Birdsong, certain speech sounds, and instruments like flutes and piccolos are difficult to hear for most with hearing loss. For most, a hearing loss will begin by affecting the upper pitches of the human hearing range. When you have a hearing loss, your hearing range changes. Hearing ranges for people with hearing loss Lower frequency sounds like the roar of a wind turbine are also out of the human hearing range and are often felt as vibrations rather than heard as sound. We can’t hear the sound of a dog whistle, but a dog can because dogs have a much large hearing range than humans do. Surprisingly, there are sounds that even humans with the best hearing can’t hear. Here are some examples of the decibel levels of typical sounds: Sounds that are more than 85dB can be dangerous for your hearing in the case of prolonged exposure. While 20 to 20,000Hz forms the absolute borders of the human hearing range, our hearing is most sensitive in the 2000 - 5000 Hz frequency range.Īs far as loudness is concerned, humans can typically hear starting at 0 dB. On the other side of the human hearing range, the highest possible frequency heard without discomfort is 20,000Hz. That’s about the same as the lowest pedal on a pipe organ. Pitch is measured in Hertz (Hz) and loudness is measured in decibels (dB).įor a person with normal hearing, when it comes to pitch the human hearing range starts low at about 20 Hz. The human hearing range depends on both the pitch of the sound – whether it is high or low – and the loudness of the sound. This human hearing range is called the audible range. There are a variety of sounds in our environment, ranging from faint sounds like birdsong and rustling leaves to louder sounds like music, yelling, and industrial noise.