I made a call to such echo test numbers, like 1-416-342-9562, and listened to my own talk.
Then I did another test by calling my own phone # and left a voice-mail message there.
Afterwards, I listened to my voice-mail message. To my surprise, I found the volume of this message is noticeably lower than that of my echoed-back talk from 1-416-342-9562.
So either 1-416-342-9562 is artifically increasing the volume of my voice beyond its true value when echoing it back, or my voice-mail system is artifically decreasing the volume of my voice during recording, and/or during play-back.
Any idea?