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
Tap a note to play its exact pitch — C1 to B8
Presets — one tap to start
Scale
Repeat
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