Sound Test Online — Speakers, Headphones & Microphone
This sound test lets you try the left and right channels, play a tone and watch the microphone level in your browser. Start quietly and check one thing at a time. If a channel stays silent, compare the selected output and system volume before blaming the speaker. The test helps narrow down a problem; it cannot identify a broken component on its own.
How to run a sound test in your browser
Test output before input. Set system volume to roughly 50%, confirm the right playback device is selected, then play a tone to one side at a time. If you hear it in both ears, the whole output chain — app, driver, cable and driver unit — is intact. Only then test the microphone, because a mic check you cannot hear back proves nothing.
Three checks cover nearly every "my sound is broken" case. A left/right tone proves both channels reach both drivers. A sine sweep proves those drivers reproduce the range without buzzing or dropping out. A record-and-play-back loop proves your mic actually picks up your voice. Run them in that order and within a minute you will know whether the fault is hardware, the operating system, or one specific app.
Speaker and headphone test: left, right, both
A stereo check answers two questions at once: is each channel alive, and are they the right way round. The left right speaker test plays a short 440 Hz tone hard-panned to one side, so you hear it in one ear only. Click left and it should arrive in your left ear. If it arrives in the right, the channels are reversed somewhere — usually the headphones are on backwards, sometimes a cable is wired the wrong way, occasionally an audio driver swapped them.
If one side is silent, the cause is more often a setting than a dead driver. Windows keeps a per-device balance slider under Sound → device Properties → Levels → Balance, and it can end up at zero on one channel after an update or a device switch. macOS has the same slider in System Settings → Sound → Output. A 3.5 mm plug that is not pushed all the way into a combo jack also gives exactly this symptom, as does lint in the jack.
One extra step isolates it: plug the same headphones into a phone. Both sides working there means the computer is at fault; one side still silent means the cable or driver unit has failed.
Microphone test: is anything getting in?
Input is the other half of a sound test. The microphone test shows a live spectrum and a level percentage that should move as you speak, then records five seconds and plays it straight back so you hear what the other end of a call hears. A flat meter while you talk means the browser is receiving a silent stream — wrong input device, a muted hardware switch, or a permission that was granted to a different device than the one you are speaking into.
Tone generator: sweep 20 Hz to 15 kHz
A single steady frequency is the most revealing audio test there is, because it isolates one part of a speaker's range at a time. The tone generator produces a pure sine wave anywhere from 20 Hz to 15 kHz and holds it while you sweep, so you can hear exactly where a driver stops working.
Expect laptop speakers to produce almost nothing below 150–200 Hz — that is normal physics for a small enclosure, not a fault. What is a fault is buzzing, rattling or a hard cut-out at a specific frequency while neighbouring frequencies play cleanly: a damaged voice coil or a loose panel resonating. Sweep slowly and note the frequencies where it happens, because that is the detail a repair shop will ask for.
At the top end, the sweep doubles as a rough hearing check. Most adults stop hearing between 14 and 17 kHz, so silence above 15 kHz usually says more about ears than speakers. Keep the volume low up there — sustained tones are fatiguing and easy to underestimate.
Pitch detector: identify a note, frequency and tuning offset
A level meter tells you that the microphone receives sound. The online pitch detector answers a different question: what single note is that sound? It shows the closest note name and octave, its frequency in Hz, and its cents distance from the note centre. Use it with one sustained voice or instrument note, not a chord or a busy recording.
It is useful for checking singing intonation, tuning one string at a time, or naming a note you hear. Start with the microphone test if the detector sees no signal, and use the tone generator when you need a known reference pitch.
When the sound test passes but you still hear nothing
If tones play here and a meeting or a game is silent, the hardware is fine and the problem is routing. Check these in order.
- Default output device. Windows and macOS switch outputs on their own when a headset, monitor or dock connects. An HDMI monitor with no speakers is a classic silent default.
- Per-app volume. Windows Volume Mixer stores a level per application, and one app can sit at zero while everything else is fine.
- Conference audio not joined. Zoom's "Test Speaker and Microphone" plays locally and does not connect you — you still have to choose Join Audio, then Join with Computer Audio. Discord and Teams keep their own output device pickers that ignore the system default.
- A recent OS update. If sound stopped the day an update installed, reinstall or roll back the audio driver: Device Manager → Sound, video and game controllers → right-click the device → Uninstall device, tick the option to remove the driver, then restart and let Windows reinstall it.
- Audio enhancements and exclusive mode. Spatial audio, loudness equalisation and exclusive control all break output on some hardware. Turn them off and test again.
What a browser sound test can and cannot measure
This test confirms that signal reaches each channel, that a driver reproduces a given frequency, and that your microphone delivers audio to software. It is a continuity and routing check, not a measurement.
It cannot report loudness in decibels SPL. The level meter is a relative percentage of the digital signal the browser receives, scaled by whatever input gain the operating system applies, so the same voice reads differently on two machines. It cannot measure frequency response, because that needs a calibrated microphone in a treated room. It cannot separate a failing speaker from a failing amplifier — both sound like distortion. And on Bluetooth, some headset profiles collapse to narrowband mono the moment the microphone becomes active — which is why a headset can sound perfect for music and terrible on a call.
Nothing you record leaves this page
Microphone audio is captured with getUserMedia, held in memory as a blob inside the tab, and played back from that blob. There is no upload, no account and no server-side storage, and closing or reloading the page destroys the recording. Tones are generated locally by an oscillator rather than downloaded as files, which is also why they start instantly and never buffer.
Frequently asked questions
How can I test whether my speakers are actually working?
Play a tone to each channel on its own and listen — that is the whole test. If both sides reproduce it cleanly at moderate volume, the speakers work. To go further, sweep a sine wave upward from 20 Hz and listen for buzzing or silence in a narrow band, which points at a damaged driver. Comparing the same tones through headphones separates a broken speaker from a wrong output setting.
Why is sound only coming from one side of my headphones?
Usually a balance slider sitting at zero on one channel or a plug that is not fully inserted — not a dead driver. Open Sound settings, go to the device's Properties → Levels → Balance and put both channels at the same value, then reseat the 3.5 mm plug until it clicks and check the jack for lint. If a left/right tone still plays on one side only, try the same headphones on a phone to tell a cable fault from a PC fault.
My headset only plays in the left ear on my PC but works fine on my phone. What is wrong?
The computer is at fault, not the headset — the phone already proved both drivers work. Check the per-device balance in Windows sound settings, then push the plug fully into the combo jack; a partial contact in a deeper PC jack reproduces exactly this symptom while a phone's shallower jack still connects. Clean the jack with a dry swab, try a second cable, and switch the default format to a plain 16-bit stereo option before replacing anything.
There is no sound from my PC after a Windows update. How do I get it back?
Reinstall or roll back the audio driver — that fixes most post-update silence. In Device Manager, expand Sound, video and game controllers, right-click your audio device, choose Uninstall device with the option to remove the driver, then restart so Windows reinstalls it. If sound is still missing, check that the update did not change the default output device, and restart the Windows Audio and Windows Audio Endpoint Builder services in services.msc.
One of my laptop speakers sounds quieter than the other. How do I check it?
Play the identical tone to each channel separately at a fixed volume and compare, with the system balance slider centred first. Built-in diagnostics play a test tone but do not grade balance, so a machine with a genuinely weak driver can still pass them. If one side is quieter at every frequency, treat it as hardware and get it serviced under warranty. If it is only weak in the bass, it is more likely enclosure design than a defect.
The Zoom speaker test works but I cannot hear anyone in the meeting. Why?
You are almost certainly not joined to the meeting audio. Testing the speaker and microphone in Zoom's settings routes sound locally and does not connect you to the call, so closing that window leaves you silent. Click Join Audio, then Join with Computer Audio. If you are already joined, open the arrow beside the microphone icon and confirm Zoom's own output device is the one you are actually listening through.
My speakers have been distorted since a system update. Is that software or a blown speaker?
Play the same audio through headphones or a Bluetooth speaker: if the distortion disappears, the internal drivers are damaged; if it follows every output, it is software. A slow sine sweep sharpens the answer — a blown driver buzzes at particular frequencies while playing others cleanly, whereas a software or driver problem distorts the whole range evenly. Update timing is a coincidence often enough that physical speaker replacement ends up being the fix.