Digits-in-Noise Test

A published screening method that presents triplets of spoken digits (0–9) over background noise and measures the point where you can just still follow them — your speech reception threshold (SRT). It was originally developed in Dutch as a telephone screening test, and the method has since been validated methodologically across 17 different languages.

The digit-triplet test — three spoken digits presented over steady background noise, with the noise level adapting to each answer — is a real, published screening method. Because it measures a ratio between speech and noise rather than an absolute loudness level, it's less sensitive to playback volume and device differences than a pure-tone test — that's the whole reason it works reasonably well as a self-administered check, and why it holds up without a soundproof booth, unlike classic tonal audiometry.

The original telephone version of the test was validated with a measurement error under 1 dB — genuinely high precision for a test administered over an ordinary phone line. Modern browser- and app-based variants typically take under 5 minutes, and some newer adaptive procedures run in under 70 seconds.

What's different here: published versions use pre-recorded, calibrated speech. This version uses your browser's built-in text-to-speech voice, which varies in clarity across browsers and operating systems and hasn't itself been validated against clinical outcomes. Treat the score as a rough, self-generated signal — useful if it's clearly outside the typical range or if it prompts you to get a real test, not as a clinical result on its own.

Lower (more negative) dB SNR is better — it means you could still follow the digits even when the noise was louder than they were. A score clearly outside the range typically reported for normal hearing in the published literature is worth a real evaluation, not self-diagnosis.

• Close to the reference range: try the tone-based hearing check, which tests each ear separately — something this test cannot do.
• Worse than the reference range: a real evaluation is the next step. What a first audiology appointment involves and how tinnitus is diagnosed cover what happens there.
• A normal score, but noisy rooms are still hard: that gap is what hidden hearing loss is about.

A pure-tone test checks whether specific pitches are audible in quiet — closer to what a clinical audiogram measures. A digits-in-noise test checks something people notice more in daily life: following speech when there's background noise, which pure-tone results alone don't always predict well. The two catch different things, which is why this site offers both.

Difficulty following speech in noise is a common early sign of the same hearing changes that often accompany tinnitus — see tinnitus and hearing loss: the connection explained for the mechanism, and noise-induced tinnitus if loud environments are part of your history.

A clearly poor score, a sudden change, or difficulty in noise that's affecting work or conversation day to day — any of these are reasons to get a real evaluation, not to keep retesting yourself here. If your hearing changed over hours or days, read sudden sensorineural hearing loss first: that one is a same-day matter.