Microphone Test

About this tool

This free microphone test tells you two things a settings screen cannot: whether your mic is picking up sound at all, and what you actually sound like to the person on the other end. A live level bar and waveform respond the moment you speak, and a five-second recording lets you play yourself back.

It runs in your browser. The audio is analysed on your device and never uploaded — the recorded clip is held in memory until you save it or leave the page.

Features

• Live input level in dB, with a moving waveform
• Clipping warning when the signal is too hot
• Record and play back a five-second clip
• Device picker if you have more than one microphone
• Save the clip as a file if you want to keep it
• Works with built-in mics, headsets, USB mics and Bluetooth

Reading the level bar

The bar shows RMS level — roughly, average loudness — on a decibel scale where 0 dB is the loudest the sound card can represent. Digital audio has no headroom above that point, so unlike a room, louder is not simply better.

• Bar barely moves — the mic is not picking you up. Wrong input device, muted, or the gain is at zero
• Bar moves in the green — normal speech. This is where you want to be
• Bar hits amber often — loud, but still fine
• Bar turns red — clipping. The waveform is being flattened at the top, which is where crackling and distortion come from

Speaking normally should peak somewhere in the middle. If it does not, the fix is almost always gain, not distance — turning input volume down and staying close to the mic beats shouting from across the room.

The waveform underneath is the raw signal. Speech looks like clumps of tall spikes separated by near-flat gaps. A permanently thick band that never returns to the centre line is background noise — a fan, a nearby machine, or an over-eager gain setting amplifying room hiss.

Common uses

• Check a headset before a meeting, interview or exam
• Confirm a new microphone works after plugging it in
• Find out why people say they cannot hear you
• Compare two microphones by recording the same sentence on each

How to use it

• Press "Start microphone test" — then allow microphone access when your browser asks
• Speak normally — the bar and the waveform should move as you talk
• Choose a different microphone from the list if the wrong one is selected
• Press "Record 5 seconds" and speak, then play the clip back to hear yourself
• Press "Stop test" when you are done — the microphone is released immediately

Good to know

• Nothing is uploaded. The analysis happens on your device, and the recording exists only in the page's memory until you save it
• Permission is per-site and per-browser. Allowing it here does not affect any other site, and you can revoke it from the padlock icon in the address bar
• If the browser never asks for permission, it was probably blocked earlier. Click the padlock next to the address and reset the microphone permission
• "Could not open the microphone" usually means another app has it. Video-call apps often hold the device exclusively — close them and try again
• Bluetooth headsets switch to a low-quality mode when the mic is in use; that quality drop is the headset, not this tool
• Playback quality is limited by your speakers, so judge the recording with headphones on
• The clip is encoded with whatever your browser supports — usually WebM/Opus, or M4A on Safari

Related tools

• Webcam Test — check the camera as well before a call
• Audio to Text — transcribe a recording on your device
• Trim Audio — cut a recording down to the part you want
• Screen Recorder — record the screen with your microphone