Volume Test

Press Play for a quiet tone, then press the six steps lower down, from 1% to 50% volume.

Volume Test: 1,000 Hz sine tone

Start with your device volume low.

Sine wave · both channels

Hz

  • Period 1 ms
  • Wavelength 34.3 cm (13.5 in)
  • 21 cents above B5

Ready. It starts quiet and fades in over half a second.

 

A steady tone can harm ears and speakers before it sounds loud. Hear nothing? Do not turn it up to find the tone: small speakers cannot play very low tones, and many adults cannot hear very high ones.

Percent of this tool's loudest. Your device volume does the rest.

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Volume test steps

Next step On headphones? Step the bass down, one ear at a timeSound out works. Now check the microphone

How it works

This volume test plays one 1,000 Hz tone at six set levels, from very quiet to half of full. Each should sound louder than the last and just as clean: a volume check for headphones, a phone or a speaker.

Read the full guide

Step from quiet to loud

1. Press Play. The tone fades in at 10%, the page's own quiet start.

2. Press the rows in order, from Step 1 of 6: volume 1% to Step 6 of 6: volume 50%, and leave the device's own volume alone while you do.

3. For a speaker volume test, stay on the 50% row and raise the device's own volume slowly, not the page's slider. The first buzz or harsh edge marks the loudest it plays cleanly: stop there, or sooner if it gets uncomfortably loud. Loudspeakers only, never headphones.

  • Save WAV writes about 60 seconds of the tone at the level on screen, for a TV or a car stereo with no browser.

Questions and answers

How do I test volume on computer speakers or a phone?

Play the 20% row and press the device's volume keys one step at a time, down and then up. Every press should change the loudness a little, with no sudden jump and no step where nothing happens.

How do I run a headphone volume test?

Press Play first, then put the headphones on. Step up the ladder as far as the 20% row, then press Left side alone at 10% and Right side alone at 10%: the two should sound equally loud. Leave the 50% row for loudspeakers.

Is this a sound level test in decibels?

No. The page measures nothing, so it cannot say how many decibels reach your ears. The dB figure beside the slider is counted down from the tool's own loudest: −20 dB is a tenth of it, not a sound level in the room.

What is the quiet sound test for?

The 1% and 2% rows show whether a device plays a faint sound cleanly: a steady, pure tone with no crackle or hiss on top. This is a check of the device, not a hearing test.

All 12 steps

Quiet to loud, one tone 6

  • Step 1 of 6: volume 1% The slider reads 1% · −40 dB. Faint on purpose. Hear nothing? Press the next step and leave the device's volume alone.
  • Step 2 of 6: volume 2% 2% · −34 dB. Doubling the slider adds about 6 dB: plainly louder, not yet twice as loud.
  • Step 3 of 6: volume 5% 5% · −26 dB. Each step of this ladder is 6 to 8 dB above the last, so the steps should sound about the same size.
  • Step 4 of 6: volume 10% 10% · −20 dB, where the page opens. It is 20 dB above step 1: roughly four times as loud at this pitch.
  • Step 5 of 6: volume 20% 20% · −14 dB. A fifth of the way along the slider is already within 14 dB of its top.
  • Step 6 of 6: volume 50% 50% · −6 dB, the loudest a row goes. It should be louder and just as pure. A buzz or a harsh edge is the speaker or amplifier at its limit: turn the device down.
Show all 12 steps (6 more)

Left and right at one volume 3

  • Both sides at 10% With two speakers playing equally, the tone seems to come from between them. Leaning left or right? That side is louder.
  • Left side alone at 10% Only the left side plays. Note how loud it is, then press the next row.
  • Right side alone at 10% The same tone on the right. One side plainly quieter? Look for a balance control in the device's sound settings: off center, it turns one side down.

Low and high at one volume 3

  • 100 Hz bass at 10% Same setting, low tone. The ear is less sensitive to quiet bass and small speakers play little of it, so it sounds quieter than 1,000 Hz, or not at all. No reason to turn it up.
  • 3,000 Hz at 10% Hearing is keenest between about 2,000 and 5,000 Hz, so this usually sounds louder than 1,000 Hz did. The slider has not moved.
  • 8,000 Hz treble at 10% Above about 5,000 Hz the ear's sensitivity falls away again. A sine wave has no harmonics: any hiss or rattle with it is added by the speaker.

How this list was compiled: Original steps for this page. Each is a steady sine tone made in the visitor's browser by this page's own tone generator, whose volume slider sets the size of the wave in percent of the tool's loudest. Decibel figures are computed, not looked up: 20 times the base-10 logarithm of that share, so 10% is −20 dB and 50% is −6 dB. Checked on 2026-10-06 at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decibel (ten times the amplitude is 20 dB more; doubling an amplitude is commonly given as 6 dB), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sone (at 1 kHz each 10 dB is almost exactly a doubling of loudness), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness (hearing is most sensitive around 2 to 4 kHz and less so to either side; the ear is less sensitive to low frequencies at lower levels), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour (keenest from 2 to 5 kHz), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipping_(audio) (an overdriven amplifier flattens a sine wave towards a square wave and adds strong high harmonics), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sine_wave (one frequency and no harmonics), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panning_(audio) (a sound sent equally to both sides is heard between the left and right speakers), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereophonic_sound (a balance control turned from its center lowers one channel) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woofer (the lower the frequency, the larger the enclosure a speaker needs). Wikipedia's text is under CC BY-SA 4.0; the facts were checked there and the wording is this site's own. Licence: own work

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