Testing audio before a video call
Ninety seconds, in this order, catches nearly every fault that turns the start of a meeting into a discussion about sound.
Why the meeting app's own test is not enough
Conferencing apps offer a speaker test that plays a short jingle, and it answers one question: is something coming out. It does not tell you whether both channels work, whether your headset has switched into its low-quality call mode, or whether the device the app is using is the one you think it is. Those three are behind most "sorry, can you hear me now" moments.
Step 1: check the output first, on this page
Run the left/right test. It takes half a minute and confirms both sides play and the channels are the right way round. Do it before you open the meeting app, because a headset with one dead side is far easier to notice now than during a call, when you will assume the other person's microphone is at fault.
Step 2: make sure the app uses the right device
Every conferencing app keeps its own device selection, separate from the system's. It is entirely possible for the system to be sending sound to your headset while the app is sending it to a monitor over HDMI. Open the app's audio settings and set both the speaker and the microphone explicitly rather than leaving them on the default.
Plugging a headset in during a call is what most often breaks this. The app may keep using the previous device, and the person who plugged something in is the last to realise.
Step 3: know what call mode will do to a Bluetooth headset
If you are on wireless earbuds, expect the sound quality to drop the moment the call starts. The headset switches from a media profile to a two-way profile that carries your microphone as well, and the bandwidth left for audio is much smaller. Everything will sound like a telephone.
That is normal. What is not normal is the same degradation outside a call, which means a background application is holding the microphone — a conferencing app left running, or a recorder. Close it and the quality returns.
Step 4: deal with echo before someone mentions it
Echo is nearly always caused by one participant using speakers rather than headphones: their speaker output reaches their own microphone and goes back out to everybody. Echo cancellation handles the easy cases and gives up on a loud speaker in a reflective room.
Headphones remove the problem completely and instantly. If you cannot use them, lower the speaker volume and move the microphone away from the speaker, which is the next best thing.
Step 5: a level check that takes ten seconds
Use the app's own microphone meter and speak at the volume you will actually use. A meter that barely moves means you are too far away or the wrong input is selected; a meter pinned at the top means clipping, which sounds far worse to others than it looks to you. Aim for the middle.
While you are there, disable any automatic gain control if the app offers the choice and your microphone is decent. Automatic gain is what makes a room's background hiss rise and fall between sentences.
Recurring problems worth fixing once
Your headset volume is uselessly coarse. Set the headset near maximum and control the volume from the computer, or the reverse, and you will get many more usable steps.
Sound moves to the wrong device every time you reconnect. Set the device explicitly in both the system settings and the app, rather than relying on the default, which changes whenever hardware appears or disappears.
You cannot hear one person. Confirm it is not you by running the sound test in another tab; if both channels play and the range is normal, the problem is at their end and you can say so with some confidence.
Last reviewed 2026-09-22.