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Check Headphone

Check both headphone drivers, confirm the left and right channels are not swapped, and sweep the full frequency range.

The short answer

Checking headphones means confirming both drivers work, the left and right channels are not swapped, and nothing rattles across the frequency range. Open the Headphones panel above and play the left, right and sweep tones.

Check Headphone: step by step

  1. Set the volume to about half

    Loud tones mask exactly the rattles and buzzes you are trying to find, and a full-volume sweep at 40 Hz can damage small drivers.

  2. Play the left channel

    The left cell in the panel lights up. You should hear the tone only in your left ear. Nothing, or sound in the wrong ear, is a fault.

  3. Play the right channel

    Same again on the right. If both sides play when only one should, the connection has fallen back to mono — common with a partly inserted 3.5 mm plug.

  4. Play both channels

    A centred tone should appear to sit between your ears. If it pulls to one side, the two drivers are at different output levels.

  5. Run the frequency sweep

    The sweep climbs from 20 Hz to 18 kHz over sixteen seconds. Listen for buzzing at the bottom, dropouts in the middle, and note where the tone disappears at the top.

  6. Try the individual tones

    The tone buttons hold a steady pitch so you can compare ears carefully at a single frequency.

What each symptom means

  • Muffled on one sideEarwax or dust in the mesh. Clean the grille with a dry soft brush before assuming the driver has failed.
  • One side silentTry a different port or device first. If it is still silent, the fault is in the cable or the driver — flexing the cable near the plug while a tone plays usually confirms a break.
  • Channels swappedAlmost always an adapter or extension lead wired in reverse. A four-pole plug pushed into a three-pole socket produces the same effect.
  • Buzzing on low tonesSomething is loose in the earcup, or the driver is damaged from prolonged high volume. Buzzing that changes when you press the cup is mechanical.

Why tones beat music for testing

A music track tells you very little about whether headphones work correctly, because your brain fills in what it expects to hear. A pure sine wave has one job: it either arrives at the correct ear at the correct pitch, or it does not.

Generated tones also mean nothing is downloaded and nothing is compressed. Every frequency in the sweep is synthesised in your browser at full quality, so what you hear is limited only by your hardware.

Privacy: every measurement on this page happens inside your browser. No audio is uploaded, and recordings exist only in the tab until you download them or close it.

Questions people ask

Does this test noise cancelling?

Not directly, but you can run the sweep with cancelling on and off and hear how the response changes.

Can this damage my headphones?

Not at moderate volume. Keep the level around half and avoid holding low-frequency tones at maximum output for long periods.

Do I need special headphones?

No. The test works with wired, USB and Bluetooth headphones, earbuds and over-ear models alike.

Why is the bass quieter than expected?

Small drivers roll off below about 50 Hz, and open earbuds lose bass if they do not seal. This is normal, not a defect.

Related guides: the full microphone test, a plain browser mic test, or the main test console.

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