Radio stream
health checker

Paste your stream URL below and we'll tune in the way a real listener would: connect, listen for ten seconds, and grade what we hear. Certificate health, the bitrate you actually deliver, metadata, dropouts. About fifteen seconds, any Icecast or Shoutcast stream, no matter who hosts it.

Your stream URL

No signup, no email. We connect once, listen for ten seconds, then hang up, indistinguishable from a listener tuning in.

The stream problems stations don't know they have

The worst stream problems are the ones you never hear. Everything sounds fine in the browser you always test with, while someone's kitchen radio has been silent for a week, usually because of a certificate their device doesn't trust. They don't complain. They just find another station.

The other quiet one is bitrate. Some hosts advertise 128 kbps in the headers and quietly encode lower to save themselves bandwidth, and no dashboard will ever tell you. The only way to know is to measure the stream itself, so that's what this checker does.

How to test your Icecast or Shoutcast stream

Find your direct stream URL in your hosting dashboard's stream details, or inside the .m3u or .pls file your provider gives you. It usually ends in something like /live, /stream or /radio.mp3. Paste it into the checker above and run the test. If all you've got is a .m3u or .pls playlist file, paste that. We'll follow it to the real stream ourselves. And if you paste the wrong thing, the worst that happens is we tell you it's a web page.

The test works with streams from any provider, including Icecast and Shoutcast servers, AzuraCast installs, and hosted platforms. Run it after changing your encoder settings, renewing certificates, or whenever a listener reports the stream cutting out.

Related tools & resources

Planning your streaming costs? Try the radio bandwidth calculator. New to broadcasting? Our guide to starting an online radio station walks you through every step.

FAQs

What does the stream checker test?

The things a listener's player actually cares about. We connect like one, listen for ten seconds, and grade what we hear: reachability, TLS certificate health (including whether older devices and internet radios trust it), the codec and real measured bitrate versus what your server advertises, now-playing metadata, and any stalls while we listened.

Why does my stream fail on older devices?

Many streams use certificates that older Android devices, smart speakers, and hardware internet radios don't trust, often without the station ever knowing. If your certificate chains to a newer root or uses an ECDSA-only key, listeners on older hardware hear silence while everything looks fine on your laptop. That exact failure is the main thing this checker was built to catch.

My measured bitrate is lower than advertised. What gives?

Some hosting providers advertise one bitrate in the headers and encode lower to save bandwidth. Their bandwidth bill, your sound quality. Ten seconds of measured throughput next to the advertised figure usually settles the argument.

Which stream URLs can I check?

Any public Icecast or Shoutcast-style stream URL, meaning the direct link you'd put in a player rather than your station's homepage. A .m3u or .pls playlist file works too, we'll follow it to the real stream. It doesn't matter who hosts it, and your host can't tell the check apart from a listener tuning in.

Does RadioCult handle any of this for me?

Yes, that's most of what you'd be paying us for. RadioCult stations stream at up to 320kbps to unlimited listeners, on certificates we manage and renew so they keep working on every device, including the old ones. And if your report came back rough, we'll migrate your station for free rather than watch you argue with your current host about it. Our pricing has the details.