Interactive Tinnitus Pitch Matcher & Notch Therapy Lab
Sweep the frequency slider between 250 Hz and 14,000 Hz at low volume (20–25%) to match your ringing pitch, verify one octave up/down, and launch 1-octave notched pink noise therapy.
1. Select Probe Waveform
2. Select Acoustic Therapy Mode
1-octave notch filter centered at 4000 Hz (2828–5657 Hz removed from pink noise).
How to take this tinnitus frequency test in two minutes
A tinnitus frequency test—called pitch matching in audiology clinics—helps you estimate the dominant hertz (Hz) value of the ringing, whistling or hissing in your ears. You don't need special equipment: a quiet room and a pair of ordinary headphones are enough to get a practical working number between 250 Hz and 14,000 Hz.
- Set your device volume low first. Before pressing anything, bring your computer or phone volume down to around 25–30%. High-pitched test tones carry sharp energy and never need to be loud.
- Open the Tinnitus panel and pick your probe type. If your tinnitus sounds like a clean whistle, kettle or wine-glass ring, leave the probe on Pure tone. If it sounds more like escaping steam, radio static or summer cicadas, switch to Narrow noise.
- Press "Play probe" and sweep slowly. Drag the logarithmic frequency slider from left to right. Stop when the tone in your headphones seems to sit in the same pitch register as your internal ringing.
- Nudge by semitones. Use the − and + buttons below the readout to step down or up one musical semitone at a time until the two pitches feel close.
- Run the octave check (−1 octave / +1 octave). Tap +1 octave (which doubles the frequency, for example from 4,000 Hz to 8,000 Hz) and −1 octave (which halves it). More than half of first-time testers lock onto a tone one octave below their actual tinnitus pitch because octaves share harmonic alignment.
What your tinnitus Hz number usually means
Your matched frequency is not a medical diagnosis, and it does not measure how damaged your hearing is. What it does show is the part of your inner ear's frequency map (the tonotopic map along the cochlea) where auditory nerve cells have become hyper-excitable. In clinical studies, a person's tinnitus pitch very often lands near the steepest edge or deepest dip of their audiogram—the frequency band where cochlear hair cells send less input to the brain, prompting the auditory cortex to turn up its internal gain.
| Matched Range | What It Sounds Like | Common Patterns Seen in Audiology | Suggested Sound Therapy Approach |
|---|---|---|---|
| 250 – 800 Hz | Low hum, fridge motor, distant engine or seasick roar | Less common; sometimes linked to earwax blockage, middle-ear pressure or fluid fluctuation | Brown noise, ocean surf or low-carrier masking; have an ENT check for conductive causes |
| 1,000 – 3,000 Hz | Mid-pitch whistle, dial tone or brassy ring | Mid-frequency cochlear sensitivity dip or jaw/neck somatic modulation | Notched pink noise or green noise layered with steady rain |
| 3,500 – 6,000 Hz | Clear high whistle or metallic ringing (the classic "4 kHz notch") | Frequently associated with loud noise, concerts, power tools or headphone exposure | 1-octave notched noise in our tinnitus sound therapy tool or narrowband masking |
| 6,500 – 10,000 Hz | Thin wire-like whine, crickets or sibilant hiss | Very common in age-related high-frequency hearing roll-off | Narrowband masking, night crickets or white noise / blue noise at low volume |
| 10,000 – 14,000 Hz | Ultra-high electrical whine or CRT television squeal | Edge of adult high-frequency hearing; standard phone speakers may barely reproduce it | Use headphones to verify the match; gentle broadband rain or white noise masks the high edge |
Why your pitch match can shift from day to day
Don't worry if you measure 6,200 Hz on Monday evening and 5,600 Hz on Wednesday morning. Even in university audiology labs with calibrated booths, test–retest pitch matching commonly varies by a few hundred hertz—and for hiss-like or multi-tone tinnitus, there isn't a single laser-sharp hertz number to begin with.
- Tiredness, caffeine, stress and jaw tension: Many people can change the pitch or loudness of their ringing by clenching their jaw or pressing their forehead (somatic tinnitus), because trigeminal nerve fibres cross-talk with the dorsal cochlear nucleus.
- Headphone and speaker roll-off: Laptop speakers and phone speakers drop off steeply below 200 Hz and above 10,000 Hz. If your ringing sits at 11,500 Hz, a phone speaker on a desk simply won't play the test tone loudly enough for a fair comparison.
- Temporary threshold shifts: Listening to the probe tone for too long fatigues your ear and makes everything blur together. Keep each matching attempt under 10–15 seconds, pause in silence for a few breaths, and test again.
What to do once you know your tinnitus frequency
Write your number down—both for yourself and in case you visit an audiologist. Inside mindspeace, the Tinnitus panel automatically locks its therapy filters to whatever hertz value is showing on the readout. You can switch straight to Notched noise (which carves out a full one-octave band around your pitch, following the approach tested by Okamoto and colleagues in their 2010 PNAS study) or Masking (a soft half-octave noise band centred on your ringing for immediate bedtime relief).
For a full walkthrough of how notched filtering compares with masking—and why setting your volume just below your ringing (the mixing point) works better than drowning it out—read our tinnitus pitch matching & notched therapy guide or see what different tinnitus sounds mean.
When to see a doctor promptly: This online test is an educational and sound-therapy helper, not a hearing exam. Book an urgent medical evaluation if your tinnitus started suddenly, is in one ear only, pulses in time with your heartbeat, or comes with hearing loss, ear pain or spinning dizziness. Sudden hearing loss is a medical emergency where treatment within 24 to 72 hours matters.
Frequently asked questions
What frequency is most tinnitus?
In clinical studies, most tonal tinnitus falls between 3,000 Hz and 9,000 Hz, with a large cluster around 4,000 to 8,000 Hz where noise-induced and age-related cochlear sensitivity changes are most common.
Why does the +1 octave button sound almost the same as my first match?
Doubling a frequency (one octave up) makes every second sound wave peak line up with the lower tone. The brain naturally groups octaves together, so checking one octave higher and lower prevents locking onto the wrong harmonic.
What if my tinnitus sounds like static or crickets instead of a single tone?
Switch the Probe selector from Pure tone to Narrow noise. That filters white noise into a narrow band you can slide across the spectrum, which matches hissing or cicada-like tinnitus much more naturally.
Can this online tinnitus frequency test damage my ears?
Not if you keep the volume low. Always start with the probe slider at 20–25% and never turn a high-frequency test tone up to an uncomfortable level.