Test left and right channels, balance and frequency response with tones generated in your browser.
Nothing is recorded or uploaded: the stream stays on your device and stops when you leave this page.
This is the fastest way to find out whether a pair of headphones, earbuds or speakers is wired and working the way it should. Three buttons play a 440 Hz tone on the left channel, on the right channel and on both; a balance test bounces the tone between the ears every 1.5 seconds; and a sweep climbs from 200 Hz to 8 kHz so you can hear whether the whole range comes through. An on-screen L/R indicator shows which side is supposed to be playing, so you can compare what you hear with what the browser is sending.
Everything is synthesised live by the Web Audio API — there are no audio files to download and nothing is streamed from a server. An OscillatorNode produces the sine wave, a GainNode applies a 20 ms fade in and fade out (without it, cutting a sine wave mid-cycle produces an audible click that is easy to mistake for a hardware fault), and a StereoPannerNode places the sound fully left, fully right or centred. The sweep uses an exponential frequency ramp, which matches the way we perceive pitch: each doubling of frequency sounds like the same musical step. Browsers only allow audio after a user gesture, which is why the audio engine starts on the button and not on page load.
Use it when a call sounds like it is coming from one side, when a new cable or dongle arrives, when a channel goes quiet after a fall, or simply to check a pair of headphones before buying. Be honest about the limits: this is a subjective listening test, not a measurement. It cannot produce a frequency-response curve, and what you hear also depends on your device volume, any equaliser in the system and your own ears. No microphone is requested, no audio is captured, and nothing is recorded or uploaded at any point.
The tone is a sine wave at 440 Hz shaped by a 20 ms linear fade in and out to avoid the click of a hard cut. The sweep follows an exponential ramp from 200 Hz to 8 kHz over 6 seconds — f(t) = 200 × (8000/200)^(t/6) — so the pitch rises at a constant musical rate.
No. The test only plays sound, so no microphone or camera is requested and nothing is recorded or uploaded. The browser simply needs a click before it allows audio to start, which is what the Start button is for.
Your channels are swapped, which usually comes from a reversed adapter, a badly wired cable or earbuds worn on the wrong ears. Try swapping the earbuds first, then the cable or dongle.
Not necessarily. Check the balance slider in your operating system and any accessibility audio setting first, since both can attenuate one channel. If the difference survives on another device, the headphone is the problem.
Small speakers roll off in the treble and hearing sensitivity above a few kHz drops naturally with age. A smooth fade at the top of the sweep is normal; an abrupt drop-out or a buzz is not.
No. It is a listening test, not a measurement — there is no microphone and no calibration. It detects swapped channels, dead sides, crackles and gross gaps, which covers almost every everyday headphone problem.
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