Echo Detection Tool

When a short sound is made in a room, your microphone first hears the direct sound straight from the speaker, then — a few milliseconds later — copies of it that have bounced off walls, the ceiling, the floor and furniture. Those delayed copies are reflections; strong, distinct ones are heard as echo, and a rapid train of them between parallel surfaces is "flutter echo." This tool plays a sharp click, records the response, and measures the reflections that arrive after the direct sound.

For each click it captures a short impulse response — the level over the few hundred milliseconds following the click. It finds the direct peak, then looks for later peaks that stand clearly above the decaying tail. The first-echo delay is how long after the direct sound the strongest reflection arrives; since sound travels about 343 m/s, that delay implies an extra path length (≈ 34 cm per millisecond). Averaging several clicks gives a stable read and a rough liveness rating.

Reading the result

• First-echo delay — time from the direct click to the strongest reflection. Bigger rooms give longer delays.
• Implied path — the extra distance that reflection travelled (delay × speed of sound). It hints at how far the reflecting surface is, though it’s the total bounce path, not a straight-line measurement.
• Echo level — how loud the reflection is relative to the direct click (in dB). Closer to 0 dB = a very reflective surface.
• Liveness — an overall dead / balanced / live rating from the strength and persistence of reflections.

Getting a meaningful reading

• Use speakers and keep the room quiet during each click; the tool calibrates to your background noise first.
• Put the mic away from the speaker (and not right against a wall) so the direct sound and reflections don’t overlap.
• This is a relative acoustic indicator. A proper reverberation measurement (RT60) needs calibrated gear; for an estimate, see the room-acoustics tools.