1SPEAKER-TEST(1)             General Commands Manual            SPEAKER-TEST(1)
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NAME

6       speaker-test - command-line speaker test tone generator for ALSA
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SYNOPSIS

9       speaker-test [-options]
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DESCRIPTION

13       speaker-test  generates a tone that can be used to test the speakers of
14       a computer.
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16       speaker-test by default will test the default device. If  you  want  to
17       test  another  sound device you will have first to get a list of all of
18       the sound cards in your system and the devices  associated  with  those
19       cards.  Notice  that  there might be for example, one device for analog
20       sound, one for digital sound and one for HDMI sound.  To get  the  list
21       of available cards and devices you can run aplay -L.
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24       $ aplay -L
25       null
26           Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
27       default:CARD=ICH5
28           Intel ICH5, Intel ICH5
29           Default Audio Device
30       front:CARD=ICH5,DEV=0
31           Intel ICH5, Intel ICH5
32           Front speakers
33       surround40:CARD=ICH5,DEV=0
34           Intel ICH5, Intel ICH5
35           4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
36       (...)
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39       in  the  above  example,  there are four devices listed: null, default,
40       front and surround40. So, if you want to test the last device  you  can
41       run  speaker-test  -Dsurround40:ICH5  -c 6. The -c option will indicate
42       that the six audio channels in the device have to be tested.
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OPTIONS

50       -c | --channels NUM
51              NUM channels in stream
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54       -D | --device NAME
55              PCM device name NAME
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58       -f | --frequency FREQ
59              sine wave of FREQ Hz
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62       --help Print usage help
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65       -b | --buffer TIME
66              Use buffer size of TIME microseconds.  When 0 is given, use  the
67              maximal buffer size.  The default value is 0.
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70       -p | --period TIME
71              Use  period  size  of  TIME  microseconds.  When 0 is given, the
72              periods given by -P option is used.  The default value is 0.
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75       -P | --nperiods PERIODS
76              Use number of periods.  The default value is 4.
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79       -r | --rate RATE
80              stream of RATE Hz
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83       -t | --test pink|sine|wav
84              -t pink means use pink noise (default).
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86              Pink noise is perceptually uniform noise -- that is,  it  sounds
87              like  every  frequency at once.  If you can hear any tone it may
88              indicate resonances in your speaker system or room.
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90              -t sine means to use sine wave.
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92              -t wav means to play WAV  files,  either  pre-defined  files  or
93              given via -w option.
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95              You can pass the number from 1 to 3 as a backward compatibility.
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98       -l | --nloops COUNT
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100              Specifies the number of loops.  Zero means to run infinitely.
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102              When -s option below with a valid channel is given, speaker-test
103              will perform always a single-shot without looping.
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106       -s | --speaker CHANNEL
107              Do a single-shot speaker test for the given channel.  The  chan‐
108              nel  number  starts  from  1.  The channel number corresponds to
109              left, right,  rear-left,  rear-right,  center,  LFE,  side-left,
110              side-right, and so on.
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112              For  example,  when  1 is passed, it tests the left channel only
113              once rather than both channels with looping.
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116       -w | --wavfile FILE
117              Use the given WAV file for the playback instead  of  pre-defined
118              WAV files.
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121       -W | --wavdir DIRECTORY
122              Specify  the  directory  containing WAV files for playback.  The
123              default path is /usr/share/sounds/alsa.
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126       -m | --chmap MAP
127              Pass the channel map to override.  If the playback in a specific
128              channel order or channel positions is required, pass the channel
129              position strings to this option.
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132       -X | --force-frequency
133              Allow  supplied  FREQ  to  be  outside  the  default  range   of
134              30-8000Hz. A minimum of 1Hz is still enforced.
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USAGE EXAMPLES

138       Produce stereo sound from one stereo jack:
139         speaker-test -Dplug:front -c2
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141       Produce 4 speaker sound from two stereo jacks:
142         speaker-test -Dplug:surround40 -c4
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144       Produce 5.1 speaker sound from three stereo jacks:
145         speaker-test -Dplug:surround51 -c6
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147       To send a nice low 75Hz tone to the Woofer and then exit without touch‐
148       ing any other speakers:
149         speaker-test -Dplug:surround51 -c6 -s1 -f75
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151       To do a 2-speaker test using the spdif (coax or optical) output:
152         speaker-test -Dplug:spdif -c2
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154       Play in the order of front-right and front-left from the front PCM
155         speaker-test -Dplug:front -c2 -mFR,FL
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SEE ALSO

159       aplay(1)
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AUTHOR

163       The speaker-test program was written by  James  Courtier-Dutton.   Pink
164       noise support was added by Nathan Hurst.  Further extensions by Takashi
165       Iwai.
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169speaker-test                    April 2nd, 2011                SPEAKER-TEST(1)