Headphone Test
Check your headphones, earbuds, or headset right in the browser. Play a tone through the left, right, or both channels to catch a dead side, sweep the stereo field, check the balance and wiring polarity, and quiz yourself on which ear is which — every sound is generated locally, nothing uploaded.
Set system volume low before the first play, then raise it — test tones are denser than music.
Reseat the plug, center the OS balance, and retest on another device. If the same ear stays dead everywhere, the headphones are at fault.
Run the quiz while watching the L/R markings. A low score with working channels means the pair is worn backwards or wired in reverse.
Headphones rarely fail loudly — they fail one side at a time. A frayed cable, a half-seated plug, or a dropped Bluetooth channel can leave one ear quiet while the other plays on, and inside a game or a call it is hard to tell whether the fault is your hardware, your settings, or the app. This test isolates the hardware: it generates a clean tone with the Web Audio API and routes it to exactly the channel you pick, so if the left button is silent in your left ear, the fault is real.
The five modes cover the checks that matter. Quick Test plays the tone through the left channel, the right, or both, and Auto Sweep cycles through them hands-free. Quiz plays ten rounds panned randomly to one side and asks which ear heard it — a fast check that the channels are not swapped. Panning glides the tone from ear to ear to expose crackles or dead zones across the stereo field. Balance parks the tone anywhere between the ears to compare how loud each side is. Phase plays the same tone in both ears in phase or with one side inverted: correct wiring sounds solid and centered, while inverted sounds hollow and hard to place.
What if one side is silent or quiet?
Work from the plug outward. Reseat the connector fully — a 3.5 mm plug that stops a millimetre short routes audio to the wrong contacts, muting or swapping a channel. Check your OS balance slider and any "mono audio" accessibility setting, both easy to forget. On Bluetooth, remove the pairing and pair again. Then twist the cable gently near the plug and earcup while the tone plays: crackling or cutting out marks a broken conductor, the most common headphone fault. If the same side stays dead on a second device, the headphones are faulty; if the problem follows the device, the jack or its port is.
Common headphone problems and what they mean
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| One side completely dead | Broken cable conductor, failed driver, or a half-inserted plug | Reseat the plug; test on a second device; repair or replace the cable |
| Left and right swapped | Headphones worn backwards, a miswired repair, or reversed connections | Check the L/R markings; use the Quiz mode to confirm which ear hears which side |
| One side quieter | OS balance slider off-center, earwax or debris in an earbud grille, ageing driver | Center the balance in system settings; clean the grille; compare with the Balance mode |
| Thin, hollow sound with no center | Inverted polarity — one driver wired backwards, common after cable repairs | Run the Phase mode; a repair shop can swap the two conductors back |
| Crackling when the cable moves | Frayed conductor near the plug or the earcup strain relief | Replace the cable if detachable; otherwise repair or replace the headphones |
| No sound at all in the browser | Tab muted, output routed to another device, or autoplay blocked until you click | Unmute the tab, pick the right output device in the OS, then press a play button |