TenSecondCheck

Headphone and speaker test

Turn your volume down first. Every sound starts quiet and you control it.

Runs in your browser only

Turn your volume down before you start. Every sound begins quietly and you raise it yourself.

Left and right

Frequency sweep

The tone climbs from a low rumble to a high whistle over 20 seconds. Most adults stop hearing it somewhere between 15 and 18 kHz, and hearing nothing at the very top is normal.

Before you start

Turn your system volume down to about a quarter. The test never starts loud — each tone fades in from silence — but you do not know in advance how loud your headphones are at a given setting, and some are surprisingly sensitive.

Put your headphones on the right way round. Most have a small L and R printed inside the band or on the ear cups.

Checking left and right

Press Left. You should hear a steady tone in your left ear only. Press Right and it should move to your right ear. Both plays it in the middle, as if it came from straight ahead.

This quickly catches the most common headphone faults:

  • One side is silent. A broken wire inside the cable, a worn plug or a dirty socket. Wiggle the plug gently: if the sound cuts in and out, it is the connection.
  • Both sides play, but one is quieter. Check the balance slider in your system sound settings before blaming the hardware. It moves more easily than people expect.
  • The sound is in both ears even on Left. Mono audio is switched on. It is an accessibility setting that sends the same sound to both sides, and it hides a dead channel.
  • The tone seems to come from one side on Both. One driver is weaker than the other, or the ear cups sit differently on your head. Swap the headphones round: if the weak side moves with the headphones, it is the headphones.

With speakers, stand in front of them at an equal distance. A laptop’s left and right speakers are close together, so the difference is smaller, but it should still be clear.

The frequency sweep

The sweep glides from 20 Hz — a low rumble you feel as much as hear — up to 20 kHz, a thin whistle at the edge of human hearing. It takes 20 seconds and shows the current frequency as it goes.

Listen for three things:

  1. Rattles or buzzing at particular notes. A buzz that appears at one frequency and vanishes past it points to something loose: a cracked speaker cone, a screw in the case, or a cable touching the speaker grille.
  2. Sudden drops. Every speaker gets quieter at the extremes, but a gap in the middle of the range is unusual.
  3. Where the sound starts and stops for you. Small speakers often produce little until well above 100 Hz. At the top end, hearing is the limit rather than the equipment: many adults stop hearing the sweep somewhere between 15 and 18 kHz.

Run the sweep on the speakers and then on headphones if you have both. The comparison tells you quickly whether a problem belongs to the device or to your ears and room.

Common problems and what they mean

No sound at all

The sound is going to a different output. Headphones, speakers, a monitor with built-in speakers and a Bluetooth device all appear as separate outputs, and the system does not always switch when you plug something in. Choose the output you expect in the sound settings. Also check the volume mixer: the browser can be muted on its own while other apps play normally.

Crackling or dropouts

With a cable, it is almost always the plug or the socket. With Bluetooth, it is distance or interference — walls, a phone in a back pocket, or a crowded 2.4 GHz band around Wi-Fi routers. Move closer to the device and try again.

Distortion when the volume goes up

The speaker is being asked for more than it can deliver. Turn the volume down until it stops; if it distorts even at a moderate level, the speaker may be damaged. Audio enhancement features such as bass boost can also push small speakers into distortion.

Sound arrives late

Bluetooth always adds a short delay. It hardly matters for music, but you notice it in games and when watching someone speak. Wired headphones have no such delay.

Testing the other half of a call? The microphone test checks what others hear from you. For a second-hand laptop or phone, the used device check includes the speakers in its report, and My device shows the rest of what the browser can see.

If it does not work

On your system

  1. Open Settings → System → Sound and check that the right output device is selected — headphones and speakers are separate entries.
  2. Use the volume mixer on the same screen to check that your browser is not muted on its own.
  3. If only one side plays, look at the balance setting for that device and set both channels equal.
  4. Try the headphones in another socket or another device to tell a broken cable from a broken socket.
  1. Open System Settings → Sound → Output and pick the right device.
  2. Check the balance slider on that screen — if it has slipped to one side, one ear will be silent.
  3. For Bluetooth headphones, check they are not connected in call mode, which lowers quality and can mute one channel.
  1. Check the media volume, which is separate from the ringer volume.
  2. Open the Bluetooth settings and make sure sound is going to the device you are wearing.
  3. Look in accessibility settings for a mono audio option, which sends the same sound to both ears and hides a dead channel.
  1. Open Settings → Accessibility → Audio & Visual and check the left–right balance slider.
  2. In the same place, check whether Mono Audio is on — it hides a dead channel.
  3. Check the ring/silent switch and the media volume, which are separate.

Questions and answers

Can this test damage my headphones or my hearing?
Not at a sensible volume. Every tone starts silent and rises slowly, and the volume slider is capped well below full scale. Still, turn the system volume down before you start, and stop the sweep if the very low or very high end becomes unpleasant.
Why can't I hear the top of the frequency sweep?
Hearing at high frequencies fades with age, and many adults stop hearing the tone somewhere between 15 and 18 kHz. Small speakers also struggle up there. Silence at the very end of the sweep is normal and says nothing bad about your equipment.
Left and right are swapped. Is something broken?
Usually the headphones are simply on the wrong ears — look for the small L and R marks. If they are on correctly and the sides are still swapped, check the balance and any audio enhancement software, which can swap or mix channels.
Why does my laptop have almost no bass?
Tiny speakers in a thin case cannot move enough air to produce low notes. During the sweep, the first part may be nearly silent on a laptop and clearly audible on headphones. That is a limit of the speaker size, not a fault.
Does the test work with Bluetooth headphones?
Yes. Bluetooth adds a short delay, so the sound can start a moment after you press the button. If a Bluetooth headset suddenly sounds flat and muffled, check that no app is using its microphone — that switches many headsets to a lower-quality mode.