Microphone Test — Test Your Mic Online

How to test your microphone

1. Press “Test My Microphone”

   The button sits directly under the level meter. Nothing is captured until you press it.

2. Allow access when your browser asks

   A permission prompt appears near the address bar. Choose Allow. If you accidentally blocked it before, click the padlock icon, reset the microphone permission, then reload.

3. Speak at a normal volume

   Talk as you would on a call, about 15–30 cm from the mic. The meter should move with your voice and the waveform should show peaks and valleys rather than a flat line.

4. Read the level and the verdict

   Aim for peaks around −12 to −6 dB. The verdict box below the meter tells you whether the level is healthy, too quiet, or clipping.

5. Record five seconds and listen back

   This is the part most tools skip. Hearing your own recording is the only way to judge background noise, echo, plosives and muffled sound.

What the meter and graphs are telling you

Most microphone testers show a bar that wiggles and stop there. That tells you the mic is alive, but not whether it is any good. The three displays on this page each answer a different question.

The level meter answers "am I loud enough?" It reads in dBFS — decibels relative to full scale — where 0 dB is the loudest signal a digital system can represent and everything quieter is a negative number. For speech you want peaks landing between −12 and −6 dB with the average sitting near −20 dB. Below about −40 dB average, listeners will strain to hear you and any noise reduction will chew up your voice. Touching 0 dB means the signal is clipped: the tops of the waveform are cut flat and the sound turns harsh and crackly, which no amount of post-processing repairs.

The waveform answers "is my signal clean?" A healthy voice produces bursts of activity with clear gaps between words, and the trace should sit near the centre line when you are silent. If the line never settles at rest, something is feeding constant noise into the mic — a fan, an air conditioner, a ground loop, or a gain setting that is far too high. If the peaks look chopped flat at the top and bottom, you are clipping.

The spectrum answers "does my voice sound natural?" Speech energy lives mostly between 100 Hz and 8 kHz. A big mound of energy below 80 Hz that moves when you breathe usually means rumble from the desk or handling noise, which a high-pass filter or a shock mount removes. Very little above 4 kHz makes a voice sound muffled, and that is often a sign the mic is pointed the wrong way — many side-address condenser mics pick up from the front face, not the top.

Why record and listen back?

A meter cannot hear echo. It cannot hear the fan in your room, the keyboard under your hands, or the harsh S sounds that make headphones unpleasant for the person on the other end. The only reliable way to judge those is to record a few seconds and listen with headphones on.

When you play back your take, listen for four things specifically. First, background hiss during the gaps — a constant hiss means high gain on a weak mic. Second, room echo, which sounds like your voice arriving twice in a hard-surfaced room. Third, popping on P and B sounds, which a pop filter or moving slightly off-axis fixes. Fourth, whether the recording sounds thin or boomy compared to how you hear yourself, which is usually about distance: too far sounds thin and roomy, too close sounds boomy from the proximity effect.

The three processing switches

Browsers apply three optional audio filters before a page receives your microphone signal, and this test lets you toggle each one so you can hear the difference.

Echo cancellation removes sound coming out of your own speakers so the far end does not hear themselves. It is essential for speakerphone calls and unnecessary when you wear headphones. It can slightly dull a voice, so recording musicians usually turn it off.

Noise suppression subtracts steady background sound such as fans and air conditioning. It works well on constant noise and poorly on sudden noise like a door slam. Turned up, it can make a voice sound underwater during quiet passages.

Auto gain control continuously raises and lowers the input level to keep you at a consistent loudness. It rescues people who move around while talking, but it also raises the noise floor whenever you stop speaking, which is why studio recordings almost always have it off with the gain set manually instead.

Common results and what they mean

Which microphones can you test?

Anything your operating system recognises as an audio input works here: laptop built-in mics, USB condenser mics like the Blue Yeti or Rode NT-USB, gaming headsets over USB or 3.5 mm, wireless earbuds including AirPods, webcam microphones, and professional mics connected through an audio interface. If the device shows up in your system sound settings, it shows up in the dropdown on this page.

Two device types behave differently and it is worth knowing why. Bluetooth headsets switch to a low-quality mono profile the moment the microphone is activated — that is a limitation of Bluetooth, not of your headset, and it is why music sounds worse during calls. Audio interfaces often present several inputs as a single device, so the browser may capture the wrong channel; select the correct input inside the interface's own control panel if the meter stays silent.

Still not working?

If the meter stays flat no matter which device you pick, the problem is below the browser — in your operating system, your drivers, or the hardware itself. These guides walk through the exact settings screens, in order, for the platform you are on: