Speaker & Headphone Test (Free, Online)
A free tool to test the left/right channels and volume balance of your speakers or headphones, right in your browser. Frequency presets help you spot missing tweeter or woofer bands — handy right after a purchase or when checking for wiring mistakes.
What the speaker and headphone test does
This tool sounds a test tone in the browser alone, to confirm **that the left and right channels both work** and **that no particular band of frequencies has dropped out**. Three channels are offered — left, both and right — along with ten preset frequencies: 100, 250 and 500 Hz, then 1, 2, 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20 kHz. A slider lets you set anything from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. The defaults are both channels at 1 kHz.
**Turn the volume down first and raise it gradually.** The test tone is a sustained pure tone, and at high volume it can damage speakers or headphones and strain your hearing. Note too that **the built-in speaker of a phone can barely reproduce anything above about 15 kHz.** Hearing nothing on the 16 kHz and 20 kHz presets usually means the limit of that speaker rather than a fault in your ears or the device, so use headphones when trying the high frequencies.
How to run the test
- Turn the volume down Set the volume slider low before anything else. This is the first step for the sake of both the equipment and your ears.
- Choose a channel Pick left, both or right. Switching between left and right reveals whether the stereo wiring has been reversed.
- Play it and listen Press play and the tone begins. Silence on one side points to a poor cable contact or a failed driver.
- Step through the frequencies Working the presets from 100 Hz up to 20 kHz makes it easier to spot a band that comes out quiet or not at all.
- Test the top end on headphones Above 12 kHz a phone’s built-in speaker cannot keep up. If you hear nothing, try the same tone on other equipment before concluding anything.
Tips for getting more out of it
- If sound only comes from one side, suspect a loose cable connection or a failing speaker. Check the same way with earphones and headphones too.
- Step through the frequency presets from low (around 100Hz) to high (16kHz and above) to spot a speaker that is quiet or silent only in a specific band.
- Start at close to the minimum volume the first time you play a tone, then raise it gradually to protect your speakers and your hearing.
- Use the "Both" channel to check mono playback, and switch between "Left" and "Right" to check for reversed stereo wiring.
Where the test helps
Checking new equipment out of the box
You can confirm straight away that both sides sound and that neither is silent.
When you suspect the stereo channels are swapped
If you select left and the sound comes from the right, a cable is in the wrong socket or the wiring is crossed.
Looking for a missing band
A dead tweeter takes the top end with it. Stepping through the presets narrows down where the dropout begins.
Checking before a video call
It heads off the mishap of hearing the other party from one side only.
When you want to check your microphone or your own hearing range
For the input side, see the microphone test; for the highest frequency you can still hear, the mosquito tone test.
Terms about speaker testing
- Test tone
- A pure tone containing a single frequency. Having no overtones, it makes the judgement of sound or no sound far clearer than music would.
- Channel (L / R)
- The left and right audio paths of a stereo signal. This tool switches between left only, right only and both, so each path can be checked in turn.
- Audible range
- The span of frequencies a person is held to hear, roughly 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. The slider here moves across that same span.
- Tweeter
- The driver that handles the high frequencies. When it fails, only the upper presets fall silent.
- Woofer
- The driver that handles the low frequencies. The presets around 100 Hz will show whether it is working.
- Frequency response
- The property describing which bands a device reproduces, and how strongly. Each product has bands it handles better than others.
- Age-related hearing loss
- The gradual loss of sensitivity to high frequencies with age. Not hearing a tone near 20 kHz does not necessarily mean the equipment is at fault.
Frequently Asked Questions
Side Note — "L," "R," and the History of Stereo Sound
The "L" and "R" labels on audio equipment refer to the speaker on the listener's left and right, respectively. Stereo playback became widespread starting in the 1950s, and its key difference from mono playback (sound from a single speaker) was the ability to reproduce a sense of spread and localization — where a sound appears to come from. Plugging a headphone jack in the wrong way can swap the left and right channels, and a classic way to check for this is a test like this one, which plays each channel separately for comparison.
The human range of hearing is generally said to span about 20Hz to 20,000Hz (20kHz), but the upper limit that people can actually perceive declines with age — many adults find it hard to hear tones above 15kHz. Frequency response varies by product: some speakers or earphones are tuned for strong bass, while others emphasize crisp treble. Stepping through several frequencies lets you get a rough sense of your own hearing range and which bands your equipment handles well or poorly.
Beyond the single-frequency sine wave used by this tool, audio equipment checks and calibration also commonly use "white noise" (which contains all frequencies at equal energy) and "pink noise" (which carries more energy at lower frequencies). White and pink noise are well suited to checking a speaker's overall frequency response at once, while a sine wave is better when you want to isolate and check one specific frequency. Choosing between them depending on the purpose is a basic technique used by audio engineers.