How to Test Your Microphone (and Find the Real Culprit)
"My mic doesn't work" has three very different causes: a dead capsule, an OS setting, or an app holding the wrong device. Each needs a different fix. A two-minute browser test tells you which one you have before you reinstall a single driver.
What you need
The mic and a quiet-ish room. Background noise is fine for the level meter, since you are watching for signal rather than measuring quality. For the playback check, speak clearly at your normal call distance, roughly a hand-span from the mic.
Step 1 — Get a live meter
Open the free microphone test and press Start, then allow the permission prompt. Speak normally: the bar should move with your voice and the peak marker should hold near your loudest moment. No movement at all means the browser received silence. Either the wrong input device is selected in your OS, the mic is muted at the hardware level (headsets love inline mute sliders), or the capsule is dead.
Step 2 — Read the level like an engineer
The height tells you more than "it moves". Normal speech should push the meter past half. Peaks crammed into the bottom third mean the input level is low, which is the OS volume slider rather than the mic and the single most common "quiet mic" cause on Windows. Peaks slamming the top, with distortion in the playback, mean the opposite: pull the input level down or move back from the mic.
Step 3 — Record and play back
The meter proves signal exists; the playback proves the mic sounds like you expect. Record five seconds, play it back, and listen as a caller would. Muffled, robotic, buzzing, or cutting out on plosives are all real hardware complaints worth acting on. The clip never leaves your browser: it lives in the tab and disappears when you close it.
Step 4 — Hardware or software? Cross-examine
A healthy meter here but silence in calls is a settings problem. Check that the same device this test shows is the default in your OS sound panel and in the calling app; apps can pin their own input device, and Windows updates have a habit of rotating the default. A flat meter everywhere the mic is tried, on every device, is a hardware fault. That distinction is your entire decision tree: settings take five minutes, dead hardware takes a warranty claim.
Step 5 — Document the failure
For a warranty or support ticket, the strongest evidence is a flat meter on this page next to a working meter from a second mic on the same port. Two screenshots, one sentence each, and the support agent has nothing left to bounce back to you.
Frequently asked questions
Is my voice recorded or uploaded?
No. The level meter is computed in your browser from the raw microphone signal. Recording only happens when you press Record, the clip stays in your tab as a local blob, and it disappears when you close the page. Nothing is uploaded, ever.
The meter moves but nobody can hear me in calls. Why?
Then the mic works and a software setting is the culprit. Check that the same device shown here is selected as the default in your OS sound settings and in the calling app. Windows in particular loves to switch the default after a driver update or a new USB device.
Why is my recording so quiet even though the meter moves?
Windows and macOS both have an input level slider that can sit at 10–30% out of the box. If your peaks stay in the lower third of the meter, raise the input level in system settings and retest. Peaks should reach the upper half during normal speech.
How can I tell a broken mic from a bad driver?
Test on a second device, a phone or another computer. If the same mic shows a healthy meter here but is silent elsewhere, the driver or OS settings are at fault. If it reads flat everywhere, the capsule or cable is dead. A USB mic that shows no level at all in this test is a strong warranty case.
My recording picks up every keyboard click and room noise. Can the test tell if that is the mic?
Partially. A very sensitive capsule is a feature, not a fault — it is supposed to hear those sounds. What the test can show you is whether the level is set so hot that normal speech clips. The fix for room noise is almost always software: noise suppression in the calling app, a cardioid pattern on a USB mic, or moving the mic closer. Only a persistent hiss or crackle that survives all of that points at the hardware.
The meter slams to full and stays there even when I whisper. What does that mean?
The input is clipping. The signal is so hot that the top of the waveform is being cut off, which sounds like a distorted, robotic version of your voice on the other end. Lower the input level or mic boost in system settings until normal speech peaks around three quarters of the meter. A mic that clips even at the lowest level has an output stage problem — a legitimate warranty case.
What is the difference between input level and mic boost?
Level is the gain applied to the signal; boost is extra gain applied on top when level alone is not enough. The rule: keep level as high as the environment allows and use boost only if you cannot reach healthy peaks any other way, because boost amplifies noise along with your voice. The meter reading is the same either way — what matters is where your peaks land and whether they are clean.
I have both a built-in mic and a USB headset. Which should I use for calls?
Whatever sounds better here. Built-in mics are tuned for convenience, USB headsets for voice clarity, but both can be fine — and either can be bad. Test both in this page using the same sentence, then compare the recordings. The one that is cleaner and stays off the level meter floor is the one your callers want, regardless of which is "supposed" to be better.