Surround Sound Test

Play each speaker of your 5.1 or 7.1 setup in turn, and check the sound comes from where it should, not just from whichever speakers are nearest the front.

Why start with "Check my output"?

Browsers won't let a page make any sound, or even set up audio, until you click something. That rule stops pages from blasting noise the moment they load, and it also means we can't ask your computer how many speakers it's set up for until you press a button. Press "Check my output" and the page asks your computer how many channels its sound output has. That's not a live check of the receiver under your TV. It's a snapshot of how your computer's default output is set up right now.

What the channel count really means

The number you see comes from your computer's settings, not from the equipment plugged into it. On Windows, it's the format set for your default playback device in Sound settings, under that device's Properties and its Advanced tab (or "Configure Speakers" on older versions). On a Mac, it's the format set in Audio MIDI Setup. A 5.1 receiver connected over HDMI or optical, wired correctly and switched on, will very often still show up as two channels until someone opens that setting and tells the computer there's more than a stereo pair connected. So if this page says "2 channels", it's at least as likely that the computer hasn't been told about your receiver as that you really only have stereo.

"Play anyway", and what it means for the result

Because computers so often under-report, refusing to run with too few channels would shut out lots of people whose 5.1 or 7.1 is really there, just not set up in the computer's settings. "Play anyway" runs the walkthrough whatever the browser reported. What it can't do is stop your computer mixing the sound down. If your computer is quietly folding six or eight channels into two before the sound leaves it, the "rear left" step will come out of a front speaker, sound completely normal, and tell you nothing about the rear speaker. That's why, for as long as you're using "Play anyway", the note on screen keeps saying the result can't be confirmed. If a step plays from the wrong place in that mode, it doesn't mean your wiring is wrong; it means your computer's output still needs setting up. That difference matters, so the note stays on screen once you've clicked past it.

Why the subwoofer step sounds different

Every step plays the same tone except the subwoofer step, which plays a low 40 Hz tone instead. There's a good reason for that. Your AV receiver filters out everything but deep bass on the subwoofer channel, usually above somewhere around 80 to 120 Hz, because that channel is only meant for bass. Send it the normal tone and a perfectly working subwoofer would play nothing, and that silence would look exactly like a dead channel. The 40 Hz tone is well inside what the subwoofer channel lets through, so if you hear nothing on that step, something really is wrong. The ".1" in 5.1 is narrower than most people think: it's really a bass-only effects channel that usually happens to go to a subwoofer. Channel layouts explained covers what 5.1, 7.1 and Atmos each mean, and why their channel orders don't always agree.

With 7.1, your receiver decides where the last two speakers are

Browsers follow a fixed channel order for mono, stereo, quad and 5.1: channel 1 is always front left, channel 4 is always the subwoofer, and so on, on every browser and every device. For anything above six channels there's no standard order. Ask for eight, and the browser simply hands over eight numbered channels and leaves your receiver to decide what the last two are for. Some receivers send them to the rear pair; others send them to a side pair and keep separate inputs for the rear. This page can't settle that, because there's no standard to follow. That's why picking 7.1 puts a note about it right on screen, not just down here.

What this walkthrough can and can't tell you

When a step plays from the speaker it names, you know the whole path for that channel works: from this tab, through your computer's sound settings, down the cable and into that one speaker. That's useful, and it's most of what "is my surround system wired up right?" is really asking. What it can't do is tell a receiver with its speaker settings mixed up apart from speaker cables that are actually crossed behind the cabinet. Both sound exactly the same here: sound from the wrong place. Only your receiver's setup menu, or following the cables by hand, will tell you which. It also can't measure volume or distortion, or check that each speaker is the size your receiver thinks it is when it manages the bass. For that you need your receiver's own room calibration, not a browser tab with no microphone and nothing to compare against.

Not sure where the problem is? Run the full sound check. It's six quick questions, and at the end it tells you which tool to use next.