Hearing Loss Simulator

How to use it

1. Put on headphones. Each ear can have a different hearing loss, and only headphones let each ear hear its own sound.
2. Play the typical-hearing version and set your volume to a comfortable conversation level. Everything you hear is relative to that volume.
3. Enter the audiogram, or choose one of the examples.
4. Switch between typical hearing and the hearing loss. The speech keeps playing, so you hear the same words both ways.
5. Try the restaurant scene, and move the background noise control up and down.
6. Press Share to send it to family or friends. The audiogram travels inside the link, which opens a simple view made for listening.

For audiologists: enter a patient's audiogram, press Share, and send the link. The patient sees a simple listening view of their own hearing loss, with nothing to edit. The audiogram is stored only in the link, not on our server.

How to read an audiogram

An audiogram is a chart of the quietest sounds a person can hear, measured separately for each ear.

• Left to right: pitch, from low (250 Hz) to high (8000 Hz). Vowels sit mostly in the low and middle pitches; many consonants, like s, f and th, are high.
• Top to bottom: loudness, in decibels hearing level (dB HL). Marks near the top mean very quiet sounds are heard. The lower a mark, the louder a sound must be before it is heard.
• Symbols: a red O is the right ear and a blue X is the left ear.
• Typical range: marks in the shaded band at the top of the chart, down to 15 dB HL, are considered typical hearing. Many clinics also count marks down to 25 dB HL as typical for adults.

What this simulator can and can't do

• It is a simulation, not a hearing test. It can't tell you anything about your own hearing, and it can't diagnose anything.
• It is relative to your volume. A browser can't play sound at a calibrated level, so the simulation is only as accurate as the comfortable volume you set at the start.
• It shows reduced audibility. Sounds below the person's thresholds become quieter or disappear. Hearing loss also involves things this can't reproduce, such as distortion, reduced ability to separate pitches, tinnitus, and the way each person's brain adapts over time.
• Real hearing loss varies. Two people with the same audiogram can hear very differently. An audiologist can explain what a particular audiogram means.
• The difference is what matters. The simulator compares two versions on whatever headphones you're using, so listen for the difference between them rather than the exact sound.
• Your own hearing counts. If you have a hearing loss yourself, it adds to the simulated one, and the comparison will understate the difference. If you can, ask someone with typical hearing to listen as well.
• One ear can't judge the other. If you hear with one ear only, you can't judge what the simulation does to your other ear.
• Headphones help. Wired or good over-ear headphones in a quiet room give the most reliable result.

See also our medical disclaimer.

Privacy by design

No audiogram data is sent to our server or stored on it. The audiogram is kept in the page address, after the # sign, and browsers never send that part of an address to the server.

Add the simulator to your site

Audiologists, clinics and hearing organizations are welcome to show the simulator on their own site. To ask for the embed code, use our contact form.

References

• Moore BCJ, Glasberg BR (1993). Simulation of the effects of loudness recruitment and threshold elevation on the intelligibility of speech in quiet and in a background of speech. J Acoust Soc Am 94(4):2050–2062. Publisher's page The simulator follows the threshold-elevation part of this method; loudness recruitment is not simulated yet.
• Clark JG (1981). Uses and abuses of hearing loss classification. ASHA 23(7):493–500.