Audio Wizard — Fix No Sound Free

An audio diagnostic wizard turns a vague playback complaint into a short series of listening checks and a plain-language verdict. This one runs seven decision trees, generating its own 1 kHz, 440 Hz and 120 Hz tones plus a low-frequency sweep, all locally in the browser with no uploads and no account.

How to use it

The wizard is a questionnaire first and a signal generator second: it asks what you hear, then plays a test only when a question needs one.

1. Pick the symptom. Seven cards cover No Sound, One Side Only, Buzz or Rattle, Too Quiet / Low Gain, Missing Bass, Distortion / Clipping, and Stereo / Phase Issue. Each starts a different tree.
2. Set a moderate system volume first. The wizard has no volume slider and no output-device picker of its own, so it plays through whatever output the operating system currently uses. Its generated signals sit at -18 dBFS, which is 0.125 linear.
3. Press the Play button when a question offers one. Each check is labelled with what it does, and where a label describes a band such as the low sweep, the generator ramps 30 Hz to 160 Hz over 4 seconds.
4. Answer with the numbered buttons. Every answer advances the tree, Back returns one question, Start Over clears the path, and the step pill shows Step N along with the symptom label.
5. Read the verdict. The card carries a chip, an explanation, a corrective checklist and links to deeper tests.
6. Run another or go back. Diagnose Another resets to the symptom grid, and Back from a verdict returns to the last question.

The seven trees

Every branch starts from a symptom, plays a signal that can expose it, then narrows the answer to hardware, settings or acoustics.

Symptom	First check	Typical verdicts
No Sound	1 kHz reference tone	Browser autoplay or permission block; wrong OS output device; cable, power or DAC failure; ground loop or severed signal wire
One Side Only	Hard-left tone, then hard-right	Intermittent plug contact; OS balance slider; potentiometer or DAC channel offset; blown driver or amplifier channel
Buzz or Rattle	30-160 Hz sweep	Enclosure or room resonance; voice-coil rub or surround rot; port chuffing or broken spider; ground loop or coil whine
Too Quiet / Low Gain	1 kHz tone judged against speech	High-impedance headphones without enough voltage; OS volume cap; streaming loudness normalisation
Missing Bass	Low-frequency sweep	Room null at the listening position; inverted speaker polarity; physical driver cutoff
Distortion / Clipping	1 kHz tone at two volume settings	Digital clipping or overdriven EQ; saturated preamp, dirty potentiometer or blown cone
Stereo / Phase Issue	440 Hz centered reference	Coherent phantom center; out-of-phase wiring or virtual surround; reversed channels

How the answers narrow the fault

No Sound plays the 1 kHz tone first. Complete silence sends you to browser and routing checks; a faint buzz with no tone sends you to a broken signal wire verdict; a clear tone sends you to an application-specific or intermittent-fault verdict. If the tone is silent and routing is correct, the tree moves downstream to cable, power, DAC or headphone jack. That ordering is deliberate: a muted tab costs nothing to fix and a failed amplifier costs real money.

One Side Only plays a hard-left tone first. When the left channel is dead, it asks whether wiggling the plug brings it back. A crackle points to an intermittent TRS contact or a broken lead in the strain relief; stable silence moves the check to the OS balance slider, then to a dead driver or amplifier channel. It also asks whether the level difference is uniform across frequencies or treble-only: uniform means an analog potentiometer or DAC offset, and treble-only means the difference should be checked with an audiologist. Swapping left and right inputs at the amplifier separates a dead speaker from a dead amplifier channel.

Buzz or Rattle uses the sweep to classify the noise by when it appears. Narrow notes that stop when you press a cabinet or shelf point to a mechanical resonance; constant crackling on every bass note points to suspension or port problems; an electrical buzz that ignores audio volume points to a ground loop or coil whine. Distortion asks you to lower digital volume while leaving amplifier gain alone: if the distortion disappears the problem is digital clipping or an EQ boost, and if it stays the fault is analog or mechanical. Missing Bass tests how low you can hear, then compares in-phase and out-of-phase 120 Hz signals to separate a room null from inverted polarity.

Reading each outcome

Three chip colours summarise the verdict. Resolved / Normal means the path behaves and the problem likely sits in another application or setting; Hardware / Cable Issue points at a physical failure or connection; Acoustic / Settings Note means a room condition, placement choice or configuration. Each verdict lists corrective actions cheapest first, then cards linking to a deeper test.

Accuracy, limits and troubleshooting

• The wizard is a guided questionnaire, not a measurement bench: verdicts are inferences from your answers and its generated signals.
• Signals play through the browser output path only; an app using exclusive mode or ASIO can stay silent while the wizard plays.
• All embedded signals are digital and uncalibrated at -18 dBFS, so “too quiet” is judged relative to speech, not against a measured sound pressure level.
• The 30-160 Hz sweep reports differently in different rooms, so retest in the position you actually use.
• Pause the audio and unplug amplifiers before moving plugs or touching speaker terminals.
• A one-sided dullness that follows your ear when you swap headphones is beyond this tool; the wizard suggests an audiologist or physician for an ear exam, and its output is screening information rather than a medical diagnosis.
• No telemetry: the tree runs in JavaScript and answers are not stored.
• If no tone is audible, confirm the OS output before assuming a hardware fault, because the page has no device selector.

Related tools

• Speaker Test — Confirm channel assignment and polarity once you know which side is silent.
• Subwoofer Test — Follow up a bass verdict with level, phase and room-mode checks.
• THD Test — Quantify distortion after the wizard narrows it to the analog path.