Dynamic Range Test
Listening examples of bit depth and dither, from 4 to 16 bits, plus quiet level steps and a digital noise floor. The page only plays sound. It does not record your system or give a measured dynamic-range figure.
Protect your ears and your speakers
Set your volume on the loud 0 dB step first, at a normal listening level. Never turn the volume up to hear a quiet step and then play something loud: the next loud sound would be 60 to 100 dB louder than what you just strained to hear. If you raised your system volume, turn it back down before you play anything else.
1. Fade-to-silence ladder
Play the 0 dB step and set your system and page volume to a normal listening level. Then step down and mark each level you can still hear. The marks are listening notes, not a measured dynamic-range figure for your setup or room.
The quieter steps unlock after you play the 0 dB step once.
Mark the steps you hear and the lowest mark shows up here.
Steps are gains relative to the 0 dB step. The pattern peaks at 0.98 before that gain and before page volume, so the 0 dB step at 100% page volume sits just under full scale. The ratios are exact in the browser's 32-bit float engine. If the output is 16-bit, the lowest steps can fall under the last bit and be dithered or rounded away. This is not a measured dynamic-range figure.
2. Bit depth and dither demo
These are listening examples of bit depth and dither, not a measured dynamic-range figure. The passage is quantised at -50 dBFS. The player then applies 44 dB of gain before page volume, unless the 0.7 peak cap lowers it. At 16-bit, the textbook gap from a full-scale sine to quantisation noise is about 98 dB, so this passage sits roughly 48 dB above that noise.
The reference. No quantisation at all.
error: none
Plain rounding. Error follows the signal, so it sounds like grit or buzz, and the tail cuts off.
added error: -101 dBFS RMS
Random +/-1 step added first. The grit becomes steady, gentle hiss and the tail fades into it.
added error: -96 dBFS RMS
Same dither with first-order error feedback. Hiss is pushed up into the treble, quieter in the midrange.
added error: -93 dBFS RMS
Without dither, look for spikes at harmonics of the note: that is distortion. With TPDF dither they melt into a flat noise floor. With noise shaping the floor tilts, lower in the bass and mids and higher as it climbs to 20 kHz. The curve is the generated demo, not a reading from your gear.
N-bit here means the top N bits of a 16-bit word, so 16-bit is CD quality and 8-bit throws away the bottom 8 bits. The rounding is done exactly in JavaScript, and the listening boost is applied afterwards in the browser's 32-bit float engine. Your system may then resample and convert to 16 or 24 bits. That extra noise is usually covered when the bit depth is low or the boost is large. It is not a measurement of your device.
3. Noise floor listener
Digital silence, 16-bit dither, and 24-bit dither play at the sample level on the button and ignore the page volume. The preview is that 16-bit dither raised by 50 dB, then sent through the page volume. These are listening examples, not a measured noise-floor figure. If silence already hisses, that hiss is in your playback chain. The page does not turn it into a dB rating.
Do not crank your system volume to chase the 16-bit noise. If you did, press Stop and turn it back down before you play the ladder, the demo or any music. Some devices mute their output when nothing plays, so hiss may appear the moment playback starts: that is the analog stage waking up.
What the numbers mean
How much range 16-bit really gives you
Each bit adds about 6 dB. The noise-floor buttons play 16-bit TPDF at about -98 dBFS RMS and 24-bit TPDF at about -146 dBFS RMS, both against a digital peak of 1. Those levels are generated in the browser, not measured from your DAC. A full-scale sine against quantisation noise is the textbook 6.02N + 1.76 dB, about 98 dB at 16-bit. The shaping button is first-order error feedback only. It moves hiss upward and does not add a larger range number. A quiet living room is often near 30 dBA, and a cautious peak near 85 dB SPL leaves a smaller gap above the room than a 16-bit file contains, so the file noise sits under the room. 24-bit helps when recording and mixing, where headroom and later gain changes use the extra bits. None of this is a measured dynamic-range figure for your gear.
What dither does
Rounding a quiet signal to a coarse grid creates errors that follow the music, so they sound like grit, buzz or a note that stops dead instead of fading. Dither adds a tiny amount of random noise before rounding, which turns that error into a steady, gentle hiss and lets quiet detail survive below the last bit. Noise shaping feeds the rounding error back so the hiss moves up into the treble. Try the demo at 8-bit and -30 dBFS to hear all three clearly.
What the ladder marks mean
The ladder only plays known steps and stores the buttons you press. It does not measure your speakers, headphones, DAC, or room. How far down you can still hear depends on how loud the 0 dB step was, the room, and your ears. Use the decibel meter to check the room, and the hearing test if one ear or some frequencies seem weaker.
The loudness war matters more than bit depth
Many modern pop masters are compressed so hard that the gap between their quiet and loud moments is under 10 dB. No bit depth brings that back. If an album sounds flat and fatiguing, the mastering is the cause, not the 16-bit format it ships in.
Related tools
- Audio blind test: an ABX test of 16-bit vs fewer bits, scored properly.
- Test tones: sine, sweep and noise signals for checking gear.
- Hearing test: check your own range and thresholds.
- Decibel meter: an uncalibrated microphone level, not a calibrated room reading.
Frequently asked questions
What does bit depth mean here?
The demo builds a quiet note or a 997 Hz tone in 32-bit float, then rounds it onto an N-bit grid. N is 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, or 16. The step size is 2 to the power of 1 minus N, the same spacing as the top N bits of a 16-bit word. 16-bit uses a step of 1/32768. The original button skips that rounding. Playback then raises the clip by the listening boost before the page volume, and the gain is capped so the boosted peak stays at or under 0.7. The page does not read your sound card.
What do the dither buttons do?
No dither rounds each sample to the nearest step. TPDF dither adds a triangular random value of plus or minus one step before rounding, from two uniform random draws. Noise shaping uses that same dither inside a first-order error-feedback loop, which moves the hiss up in frequency. The button you press is the process that runs.
Is the number on screen my gear's dynamic range?
No. The page never opens the microphone and never computes a dynamic-range figure for your speakers, headphones, DAC, or room. The ladder, the bit-depth clips, and the noise-floor buttons are listening examples. The decibel mark is only the quietest ladder step you said you heard.
How do I stop the sound?
Press Stop beside the volume slider. Press the ladder step, demo version, or noise button that is already playing to stop it. Starting another clip stops the one that is playing. Reset stops playback and clears your marks and the 0 dB reference. Changing the demo note, level, or bit depth stops a demo clip. Leaving the page stops the source and closes the audio context.
Why does sound wait for a click?
Nothing plays on load. A ladder step, demo version, or noise-floor button starts only after a click, and that click creates or resumes the audio context. Page volume starts at 20%, or at a saved level between 0 and 100. Ladder and demo level follow the square of volume over 100, so 20% is far below full scale.
Can the noise floor come out at full scale?
No. Digital silence is a buffer of zeros. 16-bit dither is triangular noise with a peak of one 16-bit step, 1/32768, and an RMS near -98 dBFS. 24-bit dither uses one 24-bit step, 1/8388608, about 48 dB quieter, near -146 dBFS RMS. Those three skip the page volume and play at that sample level. The preview raises the 16-bit noise by 50 dB inside the buffer, then sends it through the page volume. Even at 100% page volume its peak is under 0.01, not full scale.
What are the ladder steps?
Each step is the same short pattern, three beeps or three piano-like notes, turned down by 0, -20, -40, -60, -70, -80, -90, or -100 dB. The pattern peaks at 0.98 before that gain and before page volume. Quieter steps stay locked until you play 0 dB once. If you raise the page volume above the level you used on that 0 dB step, the loud steps lock until you put it back.