NAME¶
speaker-test - command-line speaker test tone generator for ALSA
SYNOPSIS¶
speaker-test [-options]
DESCRIPTION¶
speaker-test generates a tone that can be used to test the speakers of a
computer.
speaker-test by default will test the
default device. If you want
to test another sound device you will have first to get a list of all of the
sound cards in your system and the devices associated with those cards. Notice
that there might be for example, one device for analog sound, one for digital
sound and one for HDMI sound. To get the list of available cards and devices
you can run
aplay -L.
$ 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. The
-c option will indicate
that the six audio channels in the device have to be tested.
OPTIONS¶
- -c | --channels NUM
- NUM channels in stream
- -D | --device NAME
- PCM device name NAME
- -f | --frequency FREQ
- sine wave of FREQ Hz
- --help
- Print usage help
- -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|sine|wav
- -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 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
- Use the given WAV file for the playback instead of
pre-defined WAV files.
- -W | --wavdir
- Specify the directory containing WAV files for playback.
The default path is /usr/share/sounds/alsa.
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
SEE ALSO¶
aplay(1)
AUTHOR¶
The speaker-test program was written by James Courtier-Dutton. Pink noise
support was added by Nathan Hurst. Further extensions by Takashi Iwai.