Headphone test. Each ear, then in phase.
Put your headphones on. A low tone plays in the left ear and a higher one in the right, so you can tell whether they are the right way round. Then the same noise plays twice, once with one ear inverted; the one that sounds centred tells you whether both drivers push the same way.
One check
- Headphones
One check after another, with your progress along the top and a plain verdict on each. Nothing you show the camera or say into the microphone leaves this page.
What it measures
Measured here, not assumed.
- Left and right
- A 440 Hz tone in the left ear only, then a 660 Hz tone in the right. You say where each one was: right way round, swapped, only one ear, or nothing.
- Polarity
- The same noise in both ears, in phase, sounds centred inside your head. With one ear inverted it sounds wide and hollow. Sounds A and B are shuffled, so a guess has no favourite; if the inverted one sounds centred, one ear is wired backwards.
- Your answers
- The page cannot hear your headphones, so your answers are the result.
If it fails
The usual failures, and what fixes each.
- Swapped sides
- Check the L and R marks on the headphones first. If they are on right, look for a channel swap or balance setting in the system or an audio app.
- Only one ear
- Push the plug in fully, check the balance slider, and try another pair to tell the computer from the headphones.
- Reversed polarity
- Usually a repaired cable or an adapter wired backwards. It thins the bass and blurs where sounds sit. A different cable or adapter is the fix.
Where a browser stops
What it cannot tell you.
- Sound quality or frequency response. These are channel and wiring checks.
- Which device the system is sending sound to. Make sure the headphones are the output first.
- Bluetooth delay. The audio and video sync test and the audio latency test measure that.
Privacy
Nothing leaves this page.
The camera and microphone are read on this page and stopped as soon as they have been measured. The clip you can play back lives in the browser's memory and is discarded when you leave. The location check discards the position. The internet test sends random bytes to this site and nothing else. The result is stored nowhere unless you ask for it by email, and then only the fact that an email was sent is kept.
Questions
Headphone test, answered
- How do I check if my headphones are left and right correctly?
- Run the test above. A low tone plays on the left, then a higher one on the right. If the low one is in your right ear, the sides are swapped, or the headphones are on backwards.
- What is headphone polarity?
- Whether both drivers move outward together for the same signal. When one is wired backwards, sound that should be centred in your head spreads out and the bass weakens. The two noises in this test make the difference easy to hear.
- Why does one noise sound inside my head and the other outside?
- That is the test working. The same signal in both ears in phase is heard as one centred sound; with one ear inverted, the brain cannot place it and it sounds wide and hollow.
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