DevicedialTones and hearing tests
The one group here that needs no permission and no hardware you do not already own. A tone goes out, you say what you heard, and the result is a number on a named scale.
Audio test
Two numbers your operating system knows and never shows you.
Bass test
A speaker that cannot play 40 Hz can still make you think it did.
Frequency test
Both ends of your range in one pass, plus everything odd in between.
Hearing test
The result belongs to four things at once, and only one of them is your ears.
Surround sound test
The number of channels your output accepted, before any speaker is blamed.
Tone generator
A frequency you name, at a level you can quote back.
The other groups on this site test a device. This one tests the signal and the listener: a tone of a known frequency at a known level goes out, and what comes back is a number you can write down and compare against the same test next year. Nothing here asks for a permission prompt, because sending sound needs no consent — only receiving it does.
Start with the audio test if anything is wrong at all. It reports the sample rate your output is running at and how many channels it accepts, which is the fastest way to catch a Bluetooth headset that has quietly dropped into its mono voice profile — the single most common reason sound goes thin without warning. The tone generator is the instrument of the group: any frequency you name, at a level shown in dBFS so the tone can be repeated exactly rather than approximately.
Three pages find limits. The hearing test reports the highest tone you can still hear, in kHz, and says plainly that the result belongs to your headphones as much as to you — it is a screening, not an audiogram, and it cannot diagnose anything. The bass test does the same at the bottom of the range, where the answer is almost entirely about the hardware, and it covers the trap that makes cheap speakers seem to reach lower than they do: harmonics of a fundamental they never played. The frequency test sweeps the whole range in one pass and returns both ends at once, which is also the fastest way to find a rattle, since the moment you hear it tells you the frequency that caused it.
The surround sound test is the odd one out, and the only page here that deals in more than two channels: it reports how many channels your output actually accepts and then sends a tone to each in turn, so a virtual 7.1 headset gets counted honestly as the two channels it is.
Where the fault is a device rather than a frequency, the neighbouring group is the right place. The mic, sound and camera tests cover the input side and the plain left-right checks: the mic test for your level in dBFS, the speaker test and headphone test for a channel that has gone silent, and the echo test for hearing yourself the way a call does.
Frequently asked questions
Do any of these tests need permission?
None of them. Everything in this group sends sound rather than capturing it, so there is no permission prompt, no browser recording indicator and nothing that a blocked setting can break. That is the practical difference from the microphone and camera group, where a refused prompt leaves you with an empty page. It also means these tests work in a locked-down browser profile, on a work laptop, and anywhere the microphone is disabled at the operating system level.
Do these measure my hearing or my equipment?
Both at once, and that is the honest answer rather than a hedge. Every result is produced by a chain — the browser, the output device, the room and your ears — and the weakest link sets the number. At the bottom of the range the limit is nearly always the speakers; at the top it is a mixture of drivers and ears that no web page can separate. Each page names which one usually dominates, so you know what you are looking at.
Can a web page measure how loud something is in decibels?
Not in the decibels you mean. A page controls its digital output level, measured in dBFS with 0 at the digital ceiling, and it can state that exactly. Loudness in the room is measured in dB SPL and depends on the amplifier, the drivers, the volume control and your distance from them — none of which a browser can see. Anything claiming to show room loudness without a calibrated microphone is showing you an estimate wearing a unit it has not earned.
Should I use headphones or speakers?
It depends which end of the range you are testing. Headphones for the top end and for anything to do with hearing, because they put the sound at each ear separately and sidestep room reflections and background noise. Speakers for the low end, since that is what you actually listen through and their limits are the ones worth knowing. Avoid a wireless headset with its microphone open in either case: the mono voice profile it switches to cuts everything above roughly 8 kHz.
Why do the same tones sound so different on my phone and my laptop?
Two effects stack up. Every speaker has its own roll-off, and small drivers produce almost nothing below about 150 Hz however hard they are driven; on top of that, human sensitivity is far from flat, peaking around 2 to 4 kHz and falling steeply toward the bottom of the range. A tone at an identical digital level can therefore be obvious on one device and inaudible on another without anything being broken. Compare a device against itself over time rather than against another device.
How the test works
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