Decibel Shield
Speaker test tones › Bass test
Bass test: 20 Hz to 200 Hz
Step down through the bass range and mark whether you heard each tone, only felt it, or heard nothing. The lowest tone you actually hear is where your speakers or headphones stop reproducing bass. Below about 30 Hz, feeling it rather than hearing it is the normal result, not a fault.
The bottom of nominal human hearing. Felt more than heard, and only by a capable subwoofer.
Still sub-bass. Phone and laptop speakers produce nothing usable here.
A good subwoofer or a large over-ear headphone reaches this.
The lowest note of a bass guitar sits near here.
Most decent headphones manage this cleanly.
Bass body. Cabinet rattles and room resonance usually appear around here.
The common crossover point between a subwoofer and the main speakers.
Upper bass. Small speakers start to be audible here.
Boomy rooms exaggerate this band.
Low mids. A laptop speaker can usually do this.
Almost every speaker reproduces this, including a phone.
Tones play out through your speakers or headphones; there is no microphone and nothing is recorded. This tells you what your whole chain reproduces, which is the speaker, the room and your ears together, not the speaker alone. Keep the volume moderate: sustained deep tones are the one thing a test tone can genuinely damage.
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What the frequencies are
| Frequency | What it exercises |
|---|---|
| 20 Hz | The bottom of nominal human hearing. Felt more than heard, and only by a capable subwoofer. |
| 25 Hz | Still sub-bass. Phone and laptop speakers produce nothing usable here. |
| 30 Hz | A good subwoofer or a large over-ear headphone reaches this. |
| 40 Hz | The lowest note of a bass guitar sits near here. |
| 50 Hz | Most decent headphones manage this cleanly. |
| 60 Hz | Bass body. Cabinet rattles and room resonance usually appear around here. |
| 80 Hz | The common crossover point between a subwoofer and the main speakers. |
| 100 Hz | Upper bass. Small speakers start to be audible here. |
| 120 Hz | Boomy rooms exaggerate this band. |
| 150 Hz | Low mids. A laptop speaker can usually do this. |
| 200 Hz | Almost every speaker reproduces this, including a phone. |
What different gear typically reaches
| Device | Usually reaches | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Phone speaker | 300–500 Hz | Produces essentially no bass. What you hear as bass is a harmonic your ear fills in. |
| Laptop speaker | 150–200 Hz | Low mids only. A laptop that reaches 100 Hz is unusual. |
| Earbuds | 50–80 Hz | Depends heavily on the seal in your ear; a poor fit loses the bottom octave entirely. |
| Over-ear headphones | 20–40 Hz | Good ones genuinely reach the bottom of the range. |
| Bookshelf speakers | 50–60 Hz | The cabinet size sets the floor more than the price does. |
| Subwoofer | 20–30 Hz | The only common device that reproduces sub-bass at a level you hear rather than feel. |
These are typical ranges for comparison, not specifications for any particular product. Where a given device actually stops depends on its design, its condition, the fit in your ear and the room it is in.
Why a tone test cannot separate the speaker from the room
A bass tone leaving a speaker in a room does not arrive at your ear on its own. It bounces, and at the frequencies where half a wavelength fits neatly between two walls it reinforces itself and becomes far louder than its neighbours; at others it cancels and nearly disappears. Those room modes live exactly in the range this test covers, so a tone that vanishes at 50 Hz and returns at 60 Hz is telling you about the room. Headphones remove that variable, which is why the result from a decent over-ear pair is the more informative one.
Rattles, buzzes and distortion
If a tone sounds rough, buzzy or doubled rather than simply quiet, the driver is being pushed past what it can do cleanly, or something nearby is vibrating in sympathy. Turn the volume down and play it again: if the roughness goes away, it was level, not damage. If it persists at a low level, look for a loose grille, a cabinet panel, or an object on the same surface before suspecting the speaker.
The rest of the range
This page covers the bottom two and a half octaves. For the whole span up to 20 kHz, and for a channel-by-channel check, the speaker test tones generator plays any frequency from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. To confirm your left and right are the right way round, use the headphone test. To see which frequencies are in a sound around you rather than one you play, the spectrum analyser uses your microphone.
How do I test my subwoofer?
Start at 60 Hz, where nearly every subwoofer is comfortable, confirm a clean tone, then work downwards through 50, 40, 30 and 25 Hz. The point at which the tone stops being audible and becomes something you only feel is roughly where your subwoofer gives up. Keep the volume moderate throughout: sustained low tones at high level are the one real way a test tone can damage a driver.
I cannot hear 20 Hz. Is my system broken?
Almost certainly not. Twenty hertz is the nominal bottom of human hearing, and even people who can perceive it usually feel it in the chest rather than hear it as a note. Phone and laptop speakers produce nothing usable there at all, and most headphones roll off well above it. Silence at 20 Hz is the normal result.
What is the difference between hearing a tone and feeling it?
Below roughly 30 Hz the ear stops registering a clear pitch and the body starts registering pressure, so the sensation moves into your chest and the surfaces around you. That is why this test offers "felt it only" as an answer: it is a real and common outcome at the bottom of the ladder, not a failure.
Why does one frequency sound much louder than the others?
Usually the room, not the speaker. Every room has resonances where a particular wavelength fits between two walls, and a tone at that frequency is reinforced and can be 10 dB louder than its neighbours. Move a metre and play it again: if the loudness changes a lot, it is the room. Buzzes and rattles that appear at one frequency are the same effect acting on a loose panel or object.
Can a bass test damage my speakers?
It can if you run deep tones loud for a long time. Low frequencies demand a lot of excursion from the driver, and a sustained sine wave has none of the peaks and gaps that music has, so it heats the voice coil steadily. The tones here are capped and stop after four seconds each, which is enough to hear and not enough to cause trouble at a sensible volume.
Do headphones or speakers give a better result?
Headphones are more informative for this test, because they take the room out of the equation and a decent over-ear pair genuinely reaches the bottom of the range. Speakers tell you about the room as much as the speaker, which is useful in its own right but makes the result harder to attribute.