SPEAKER-TEST(1)

✨ speaker-test — the manual page but make it a group chat ✨

okay so this is speaker-test, from section 1 of the General Commands Manual, and she is literally the command-line speaker test tone generator for ALSA 💖

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🎀 NAME 🎀

speaker-test — command-line speaker test tone generator for ALSA. that's it, that's the girl. 💅

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

speaker-test [-options]

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so speaker-test generates a tone, and that tone is used to test the speakers of a computer. it's giving "is my left speaker even alive" energy and honestly we love her for it 🫶

by default, speaker-test tests the default device. if you wanna test a different sound device, bestie, you first have to get a list of all the sound cards in your system and the devices associated with those cards. and not me having to say this but — there might be, like, one device for analog sound, one for digital sound, and one for HDMI sound. multiple devices, multiple vibes. 🌈

to get the list of available cards and devices you can run aplay -L. periodt.

$ aplay -L
null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
default:CARD=ICH5
    Intel ICH5, Intel ICH5
    Default Audio Device
front:CARD=ICH5,DEV=0
    Intel ICH5, Intel ICH5
    Front speakers
surround40:CARD=ICH5,DEV=0
    Intel ICH5, Intel ICH5
    4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
(...)

in the above example, there are four devices listed: null, default, front and surround40. so if you want to test the last device you can run speaker-test -Dsurround40:ICH5 -c 6. and the -c option will indicate that the six audio channels in the device have to be tested. six channels?? she's booked and busy. 👑

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💖 OPTIONS 💖

• -c | --channels NUM — NUM channels in stream. tell her how many channels, she handles the rest ✨
• -D | --device NAME — PCM device name NAME. pick your device, be specific, be iconic.
• -f | --frequency FREQ — sine wave of FREQ Hz. one specific frequency, coming right up 🎵
• --help — Print usage help. lost? she's got you.
• -b | --buffer TIME — Use buffer size of TIME microseconds. When 0 is given, use the maximal buffer size. The default value is 0.
• -p | --period TIME — Use period size of TIME microseconds. When 0 is given, the periods given by -P option is used. The default value is 0.
• -P | --nperiods PERIODS — Use number of periods. The default value is 4.
• -r | --rate RATE — stream of RATE Hz.
• -t | --test pink|st2095|sine|wav — pick your test vibe:
  • -t pink means use pink noise (default). Pink noise is perceptually uniform noise — that is, it sounds like every frequency at once. If you can hear any tone it may indicate resonances in your speaker system or room. 👀
  • -t st2095 means use bandlimited pink noise at -18.5dB AES FS, generated according to SMPTE ST-2095:1-2015. In addition to speaker localization it may be used for system calibration, for example 85dB for thater drivers, with an extra +10dB for subwoofers. Per the spec, it is intended "to be used in calibrating the sound pressure level and electroacoustic response of a cinema B-chain system." Note that sampling rates less than 48KHz are outside the scope of the spec, and an attempt will be made to construct a reduced rate filter.
  • -t sine means to use sine wave.
  • -t wav means to play WAV files, either pre-defined files or given via -w option.
  • You can pass the number from 1 to 3 as a backward compatibility.
• -l | --nloops COUNT — Specifies the number of loops. Zero means to run infinitely. When -s option below with a valid channel is given, speaker-test will perform always a single-shot without looping.
• -s | --speaker CHANNEL — Do a single-shot speaker test for the given channel. The channel number starts from 1. The channel number corresponds to left, right, rear-left, rear-right, center, LFE, side-left, side-right, and so on. For example, when 1 is passed, it tests the left channel only once rather than both channels with looping.
• -w | --wavfile FILE — Use the given WAV file for the playback instead of pre-defined WAV files.
• -W | --wavdir DIRECTORY — Specify the directory containing WAV files for playback. The default path is /usr/share/sounds/alsa.
• -m | --chmap MAP — Pass the channel map to override. If the playback in a specific channel order or channel positions is required, pass the channel position strings to this option.
• -X | --force-frequency — Allow supplied FREQ to be outside the default range of 30-8000Hz. A minimum of 1Hz is still enforced. she'll let you go rogue, but only so rogue 💀

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🔥 USAGE EXAMPLES 🔥

Produce stereo sound from one stereo jack:

speaker-test -Dplug:front -c2

Produce 4 speaker sound from two stereo jacks:

speaker-test -Dplug:surround40 -c4

Produce 5.1 speaker sound from three stereo jacks:

speaker-test -Dplug:surround51 -c6

To send a nice low 75Hz tone to the Woofer and then exit without touching any other speakers:

speaker-test -Dplug:surround51 -c6 -s1 -f75

To do a 2-speaker test using the spdif (coax or optical) output:

speaker-test -Dplug:spdif -c2

Play in the order of front-right and front-left from the front PCM:

speaker-test -Dplug:front -c2 -mFR,FL

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

• aplay(1)

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

The speaker-test program was written by James Courtier-Dutton. Pink noise support was added by Nathan Hurst. Further extensions by Takashi Iwai. SMPTE ST-2095:1 band-limited pink noise added by Rick Sayre.

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and that's the whole page bestie, no notes 💜 this was speaker-test from the General Commands Manual, dated April 2nd, 2011, and the manual name is SPEAKER-TEST(1). go test those speakers, you're gonna slay. 🎀🦋✨