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GEARCHECK LAB
Audio Lab // Input Diagnostics

MICROPHONE LEVEL & INPUT TEST

Check whether your microphone is producing a live input signal, watch browser-stream RMS level and peak hold, choose the exact browser-visible input, and inspect negotiated audio-track settings. Levels are digital capture measurements—not acoustic dB SPL.

NO RECORDINGThis page analyzes the microphone stream locally and does not save, play back or upload your audio.
Live diagnostic

Microphone input level

MICROPHONE PERMISSION REQUIRED
−∞dBFS browser RMS
≤ −60 dBFS−30 dBFS0 dBFS

How to test a microphone

  1. Choose the microphone you want to test. If device names are hidden, press Start once and allow permission so the browser can reveal available input labels.
  2. Press Start Microphone and allow browser permission.
  3. Speak at your normal distance and volume.
  4. Confirm the live level meter rises and falls with your voice.
  5. Pause speaking to check whether background noise keeps the meter elevated.
  6. Stop the microphone when finished so the browser releases the audio track.

What the level meter means

GearCheck Lab calculates RMS from floating-point time-domain samples in the browser audio stream and expresses it relative to nominal digital full scale as dBFS. The visual bar maps −60 dBFS to 0 dBFS for a practical live display.

dBFS is a digital capture level, not acoustic dB SPL. It cannot tell you how loud the room is without a calibrated microphone, gain path and acoustic calibration.

Common microphone problems

  • No movement at all despite permission being granted.
  • Very low level even at normal speaking distance.
  • Meter remains very high when the room is quiet.
  • Level jumps or cuts out intermittently.
  • The wrong microphone device is selected by the browser or operating system.

Track settings versus Web Audio settings

The test requests echo cancellation, noise suppression and automatic gain control disabled. The REPORTED MIC PROCESSING field then shows the values returned by the active track when the browser exposes them; an unavailable value is shown as a dash rather than assumed off.

TRACK SAMPLE RATE and CHANNEL COUNT come from MediaStreamTrack.getSettings() when available. WEB AUDIO CONTEXT RATE is shown separately because the analysis context can operate at its own sample rate. Neither value proves the microphone hardware's only or maximum native mode.

Microphone test FAQ

Does this page record my voice?

No. It reads short waveform buffers only to calculate live level and render the visual meter.

Why is my microphone name hidden before permission?

Browsers often hide media-device labels until permission is granted. After access is allowed, GearCheck Lab refreshes the browser-visible microphone list so you can explicitly choose the input you want to test.

Can I use the dBFS number to set exact recording gain?

Use it as browser-capture context, not as a universal target. Recording applications can apply different gain, processing, channel routing and metering standards, so set final levels in the application you will actually record with.

Is dBFS the same as room loudness in dB SPL?

No. dBFS describes the captured digital signal relative to full scale. dB SPL requires calibrated acoustic measurement hardware and cannot be derived from this browser stream alone.