Hearing-range tone

17000 Hz — 17 kHz “Mosquito” Tone

17 kHz is the famous “mosquito” tone — a very high pitch that many younger people hear easily but a lot of adults cannot.

Audio visualization
Hz

 

20 Hz20 kHz
Waveform
Volume50%
L/R BalanceCenter

Press Space to play

About the 17000 Hz tone

17 kHz became well known as the “mosquito” tone used in devices meant to be audible to teenagers but not older adults, and later as a sneaky phone ringtone. Whether you can hear it depends heavily on your age and on your speakers or headphones — many drivers roll off before this point.

If you hear nothing, it may well be your equipment rather than your ears. Try it on good headphones at a low volume. This is just for curiosity, not a hearing test.

Technical details

Frequency
17000 Hz
Nearest note
C10 (+26¢)
Category
Hearing-range tone
Period
0.0588 ms
Wavelength (air)
2.0 cm
Octave up / down
34000 Hz / 8500 Hz

Common uses

  • The classic “can you hear the mosquito tone?” experiment
  • Check whether headphones or speakers reproduce very high frequencies
  • Compare against 15 kHz and 20 kHz

Nearby frequencies