01
Measure Background
The test listens to the quiet room first so the recorded decay can be interpreted relative to the actual captured background level.
Run a simple room acoustics test using a short clap and your microphone. Inspect the recorded decay, estimate how quickly reverberation falls away and explore whether excessive room sound may affect voice or vocal recording.
Test My Room ↓
The test first listens to the quiet room, then asks for one strong clap. After the impulse is detected, it follows the recorded energy as it decays toward the measured background level.
Choose your microphone and start the test. The browser will ask for microphone access if permission has not already been granted.
Complete a valid clap test to receive a cautious interpretation of the measured decay for close-mic voice or vocal recording.
A sharp clap acts as a rough acoustic impulse. Your microphone first receives the direct sound and early reflections, followed by progressively weaker reflected energy from the room. The tool records that event and examines how the captured energy falls over time.
Before the clap, the test measures a short section of room background. That baseline matters because a phone, laptop or ordinary USB microphone cannot follow a decay indefinitely: eventually the reverberant signal becomes indistinguishable from the recorded noise floor.
When enough usable decay is present, the analyzer fits a line to an appropriate part of the decay curve and extrapolates it to a 60 dB decay. The result is therefore an RT60-style estimate, not a claim that a consumer microphone performed a standards-grade RT60 measurement.
The test listens to the quiet room first so the recorded decay can be interpreted relative to the actual captured background level.
A sudden transient above the measured baseline marks the beginning of the room-response capture.
Short time windows are used to track how the recorded acoustic energy decreases after the impulse.
The tool reports whether enough decay range was captured for a useful estimate instead of forcing a result from inadequate data.
Reverberation is only one part of that question. For voice and vocal recording, the microphone also captures early reflections, background noise, resonances and sound arriving from nearby boundaries. A single decay number cannot describe all of those factors.
The room reverb test is most useful for identifying broad differences: for example, whether a clap dies away relatively quickly or leaves an obvious lingering tail, and whether a treatment change appears to reduce that tail when the test is repeated from similar positions.
Recording quality depends on the source, microphone, placement, frequency-dependent reflections, noise and the sound you are trying to achieve.
Small home rooms can sound complicated even when they do not have an obviously long reverberant tail. Nearby walls, ceilings, floors, desks, windows and other surfaces can produce strong early reflections that a single broadband decay estimate does not fully describe.
For that reason, use this test as one piece of information. Listen to your recordings as well, and repeat the measurement when you change microphone position, move within the room or add/remove acoustic treatment.
RT60 refers to the time associated with a 60 dB decay of sound energy in a room. In controlled acoustic measurement, the decay can be derived from a measured impulse response using defined procedures and sufficient signal-to-noise ratio.
A browser, an uncalibrated microphone and a hand clap impose important limits. The recorded signal may not contain a clean 60 dB decay above the noise floor. For that reason, this tool does not simply wait until the waveform becomes 60 dB quieter.
When a suitable portion of the decay is available, a shorter measured range can be fitted and extrapolated toward a 60 dB decay. The page identifies the method used so an extrapolated estimate is not confused with 60 dB of directly observed decay.
A microphone-based browser test can reveal useful characteristics, but it cannot replace calibrated acoustic measurement when precise room characterization is required.
Built-in and consumer microphones have their own frequency responses and may apply processing that changes the recorded impulse and decay.
The page requests raw-style microphone input where the browser allows it, but operating systems or hardware may still apply gain control, filtering or other processing.
One broadband value can hide major differences between bass, midrange and high-frequency decay. Real rooms do not necessarily decay uniformly at every frequency.
Moving the microphone or the impulse source changes the reflection pattern captured by the test, particularly in small rooms.
Clap strength and spectral content vary from attempt to attempt, making it less repeatable than specialized acoustic measurement signals.
Flutter echo, resonances, early reflections and background noise can affect recordings even when the overall broadband decay appears relatively short.
If you want to compare two positions or two treatment setups, repeatability matters more than producing one impressive-looking number. Keep as much of the test arrangement unchanged as practical.
Room decay is only one part of a recording chain. Use dedicated tools for microphone signal quality, finished mixes and other measurements rather than expecting one acoustics test to answer every audio question.
You can make an exploratory measurement with an ordinary microphone by recording an impulse such as a clap and examining its decay. The result is affected by the microphone, device processing, source and measurement position, so it should not be treated as a calibrated acoustic measurement.
The page first measures the captured background level. It then waits for a strong transient, records the acoustic tail after that transient and analyzes how the measured energy decreases over time.
It is better described as an RT60-style estimate. Where sufficient decay range exists, the tool can extrapolate from a measured portion of the decay. It identifies the method used and does not claim laboratory-grade accuracy.
The clap may be too weak, the recording may clip, the room may be too noisy, or the reverberant tail may not remain far enough above the measured background. In those cases, forcing a precise-looking number would be misleading.
A decay test alone cannot decide that. Vocal recording is also influenced by early reflections, frequency response, resonances, background noise, microphone choice and placement. This tool can help reveal room decay as one part of that assessment.
If you are evaluating a recording position, testing near that position can be useful. For comparisons, keep the microphone and clap locations as consistent as practical between measurements.
The analyzer needs a distinct impulse followed by a relatively uninterrupted decay. Multiple rapid claps create overlapping responses that make the decay harder to interpret.
Not by itself. A broadband decay measurement does not identify every reflection path or room mode. It can, however, be useful for comparing broadly similar measurements before and after a room change.
This implementation analyzes the microphone signal using browser audio APIs and contains no audio-upload request. The measurement processing in this page runs in the browser.
Use Ronter Audio Lab for exploratory audio measurements, or contact Ronter Sound when you need help with recording, production, mixing or a studio project.
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