Audio quality checker
Find out whether a recording is clear enough to transcribe before you spend anything on it, or test your microphone before the interview starts. Everything is measured in your browser and nothing is uploaded.
Pick the microphone you will record with. The check takes about eight seconds: a moment of silence to measure the room, then one sentence at your normal volume.
Measured with the browser’s noise suppression and automatic gain switched off, so you see what the microphone itself picks up. Nothing is recorded or saved.
What decides whether a transcript comes out right
Transcription models cope well with accents, fast speech and jargon. What they cannot recover is a word that never made it into the file cleanly: speech buried under a noisy room, a voice too far from the microphone, or a peak so loud the waveform was cut flat. Those are the three things this tool measures, because they are what separates a clean transcript from one full of gaps.
The numbers are the ones an audio engineer would look at. Signal-to-noise ratio is the distance between the voice and everything else; clipping counts the moments the level hit the ceiling. For how that translates into accuracy, see how accurate AI transcription really is. If the file passes, transcribe it. If long pauses are the problem, the silence remover shortens them first, and the voice recorder is there for a better take.
Audio quality checker - FAQ
Is my recording uploaded?
No. The file is decoded and measured inside this tab with your browser’s own audio engine. Nothing is sent anywhere.
What is a good signal-to-noise ratio for transcription?
25 dB or more is comfortable: the voice stands clearly apart from the room. Between 15 and 25 dB transcription usually works, but quiet words, names and numbers go first. Under 15 dB, expect gaps. These thresholds are our rule of thumb for speech, not a published standard.
Why does it call my file quiet when it sounds fine?
Your player probably turns it up. The measurement is in dBFS, relative to the loudest level a file can hold, and speech around -25 to -15 dBFS is typical of a well-set recording. Quiet audio is only a real problem when the noise is close behind it, which is why the verdict leans on signal-to-noise more than on loudness.
What does clipping mean?
The level went above what the file can store, so the tops of the waveform were cut flat. You hear it as crackle or distortion on loud syllables. It cannot be repaired afterwards; the fix is lower input gain on the next recording.
Does the microphone test record me?
No. It listens for about eight seconds to measure the levels and then releases the microphone. Nothing is saved or uploaded.
Which files can it read?
Anything your browser can decode: MP3, M4A, WAV, OGG and the audio track of most MP4 and MOV files. Up to three hours, since the whole file is held in memory.