There are several websites that enable you to test your own hearing. One of my favorites is the one available from The University of New South Wales website- its fairly easy to use and tests a frequency range of 30hz to 16hz. That’s wider than your computer speakers will work so you’ll need a nice pair of headphones, with good acoustics, that also do a decent job of snuffing out the ambient noise around you. If you calibrate your headphones or speakers for the proper volume (done by someone with relatively normal hearing), you can get an idea of how good your hearing is or not. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of free online tests. I was, however, able to get a tests result that looked somewhat similar to the one my audiologist did.

I like the idea of using an iphone app for testing your hearing [via TUAW.com]. Digital-Acoustics.com has a list of free hearing tests your can take along with a paid one.

I like the idea of being able to test my own hearing- I can switch back and forth between tones that are just at the threshold of perception. I find that if I concentrate hard enough I can hear tones that are 3 decibels less than a test would say I could.

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