Click the moment you hear the beep and get your reaction time to sound in milliseconds. The screen stays still, so you have to listen for it.
Turn your sound on. The screen won't change when the beep plays, so listen for it and click as fast as you can.
Click to start
Use Sound check first to set your volume.
Your average audio reaction time is
An audio reaction time test measures how fast you respond to a sound. You wait for a beep at a random moment, then click. ReflexLab reports the gap in milliseconds.
Most reaction tests use a light, like the green flash on the visual reaction time test. Here nothing on screen changes when the beep plays, so you react by ear. Sprinters do the same off the starting gun, and gamers do it when they hear footsteps before they see anyone.
Computers play sound late. Your browser passes the beep to the operating system, which holds it in a buffer before your speakers play it, and Bluetooth headphones add more delay on top. This test subtracts the delay your browser reports, so your time starts when the sound reaches you.
Pick how many beeps make a session (1, 3, 5, or 10), how long the random wait can run, and whether you answer with a mouse click or the spacebar. The page remembers your choices.
Press Sound check in the toolbar to hear the test beep once, and set a volume that’s easy to hear. The check also shows how much audio delay your device adds.
Click the test area or press Space. The box turns red and stays red, even after the beep plays, so the sound is your only cue.
Click or hit Space the moment you hear the beep. The timer runs from the moment the sound leaves your speakers until you respond.
After the last beep you see each time, your average, your rank, and the audio delay the test subtracted. Your personal best, ranks, and trend graph update below the test.
False starts and misses: a response before the beep, or within 100 ms of it, is a false start, and you run that round again. If you don’t respond within three seconds of the beep, the round doesn’t count. The usual cause is a muted or low volume.
A good audio reaction time is under 210 ms. In the largest study we found, 7,081 Swedish adults aged 27 to 54 took a beep test on their own computers. After the researchers corrected for differences between computer setups, the group averaged 241 ms (Madison et al., 2016), and most people landed within about 50 ms of that.
Trained sprinters react faster. At world championships from 2003 to 2009, men in the 100 m left the blocks an average of 166 ms after the gun, and finalists averaged 142 ms in the final (Tønnessen et al., 2013). We built the ranks below from those numbers:
Sensors in the starting blocks timed the sprinters, so their numbers include a whole-body push. Use them as a reference point. Your own score shifts with age, sleep, and the input you use, and Bluetooth delay your browser misses can push an Intermediate reaction into Beginner.
In the lab, people react to sound faster than to light. Jain and colleagues tested 120 medical students on the same laptop and measured 228 ms for a beep against 248 ms for a red circle (Jain et al., 2015). Shelton and Kumar found a wider gap in 14 people: 284 ms for sound and 331 ms for light (2010).
On an ordinary computer the gap can shrink or flip, because browsers play sound later than they update the screen. Bridges and colleagues timed online testing platforms on Windows and found the sound arriving 32 to 122 ms after the matching image (2020). A sound test that ignores this delay can read slower than a visual test.
This page subtracts the audio delay your browser reports. The visual test doesn’t remove your screen’s delay, so expect your gap to come out a little wider than the lab figures. To measure it, take the visual reaction time test and this one in the same sitting, five rounds each, with the same input method.
Your device plays sound a little late. On the Windows PC we built this test on, Chrome reported about 70 ms between the page scheduling the beep and the speakers playing it. Left in, that delay would add 70 ms to every time you set.
Bluetooth adds much more. RTINGS measured 166 to 173 ms on standard Bluetooth codecs and 34 ms with aptX Low Latency (RTINGS). That is more than the gap between an average score and an elite one.
This test subtracts the delay your browser reports, and the results screen shows how much it took off. On a Mac, browsers include Bluetooth in that figure. On Windows we found no sign that they do, so a Bluetooth score there includes the extra delay. Sound check flags any delay over 100 ms as likely wireless audio. For your most accurate score, use wired headphones or your device speakers.
Sprinters have a rule about how fast they can react to sound. Sensors in the starting blocks time each athlete from the gun, and World Athletics treats any reaction under 0.100 seconds as a possible false start (Technical Rule 16.6 in the Book of Rules). Outside the combined events, a sprinter who false starts is disqualified.
Researchers still argue over the 100 ms line. Pain and Hibbs recorded athletes reacting in under 100 ms (2007). Lipps and colleagues studied 425 sprinters at the 2008 Olympics and put the fastest possible reaction at 109 ms for men and 121 ms for women (2011). This test uses the same line: respond within 100 ms of the beep and the round counts as a false start.
People react faster to louder sounds. When Brown and colleagues raised a recorded gunshot from 80 to 120 dB, sprint-start reactions dropped from 138 to 120 ms. At the 2004 Olympics, runners in lane 1, closest to the starter, reacted in 160 ms against 175 ms for the other lanes (2008).
ReflexLab saves your personal best, session history, trend graph, and ranks.
Your fastest session average, shown beside every new result. Beat it and the number updates on the spot.
Your last 20 session averages on one chart, so you can tell a lucky run from steady improvement.
Each session’s average and rank with the time you ran it, so you can see whether a new pair of headphones changed your score.
Five tiers from Beginner to Elite. Once you clear one, it stays cleared until you reset your data.
Privacy note: your results stay in your browser. We never collect them or send them to a server. Reset in the toolbar clears everything.
Bluetooth can delay the beep by 170 ms or more. Wired headphones or built-in speakers keep the delay small enough for the test to measure and remove.
People react faster to louder sounds, as the sprint-start study above showed. Use Sound check to set a volume that is clear and comfortable.
Mute other tabs and notifications. A chat ping during the wait can trick you into a false start.
Poor sleep slows your reactions more than any setting on this page can make up for. Test when you’re rested so you compare like with like.
Most adults react to a beep in about 240 milliseconds. In the largest online study we found, 7,081 Swedish adults took a beep test on their own computers and averaged 241 ms after the researchers corrected for computer delay. On this test, 241 ms falls in the middle of the Intermediate rank.
In most studies, yes. Jain and colleagues tested 120 students on the same laptop and measured 228 ms for a beep against 248 ms for a red circle. Shelton and Kumar found a wider gap of 47 ms in 14 people. Run this test and the visual reaction time test in the same sitting to measure your own gap.
Yes, by a lot. Standard Bluetooth audio arrives about 170 ms late, which is more than the gap between an average score and an elite one. This test subtracts the delay your browser reports. On a Mac, browsers include Bluetooth in that figure. On Windows we found no sign that they do. For your most accurate score, use wired headphones or your device speakers.
Any response within 100 ms of the beep counts as a false start, the same line World Athletics uses at sprint starts. Researchers who studied Olympic sprinters put the fastest real reaction near 110 ms, and your time here also includes mouse or keyboard lag, so anything under 100 ms is a guess. The round doesn’t count, and you go again.
Yes. Tap the test area to start, then tap when you hear the beep. If the beep never plays on an iPhone, check the ring/silent switch. Touch screens add more lag than a desktop mouse, so compare phone scores with phone scores.
Your browser stores everything on your device: personal best, session history, trend, ranks, and settings. Nothing goes to a server, so your results stay private and won’t sync across browsers.
Disclaimer: This test is for entertainment and personal tracking. It is not a hearing test. Results depend on your hardware, browser, and audio setup. For scientific or medical assessment, use calibrated laboratory equipment.