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Audio Bass Test
20 Hz to 250 Hz tones for sub-bass reach, rattle hunting and distortion checks.
- Available — Live on this site right now.
- Browser Tool — Runs in the browser you are reading this in.
- No Install — Nothing to download, no extension, no account.
- Client-Side — Runs entirely on your device. No test data is uploaded.
- Plays Sound — Produces audio, so speakers or headphones are needed.
This page explains the tool. The tool itself is one click away and needs no sign-in.
Open Audio Bass TestWhat is this tool?
The Audio Bass Test is the Audio Frequency Test narrowed to the bottom of the range: 20 Hz to 250 Hz, on a logarithmic slider, so the whole control is devoted to the region where bass problems live.
It provides a thirteen-step bass stepper, an A/B comparison preset at 40 Hz against 80 Hz, a seven-step quick test and an eleven-phase comprehensive diagnostic. The targeted checks are deep bass, sub-bass, mid-bass, buzz and rattle, distortion, and channel balance.
Bass is the range where honest expectations matter most. Laptop and phone speakers produce essentially nothing below about 100 Hz — not because they are broken, but because a driver that small cannot move enough air. Finding out where your system actually starts is the point of the tool.
How to use it
- Set the volume low and keep it thereBass at high volume is where drivers get damaged and where distortion is easiest to mistake for output. Start quiet. The page's own FAQ addresses “Can this test damage speakers?” and “What volume should I use for a bass test?” on the same basis.
- Start at 80-100 Hz to confirm sound is coming outMost systems reproduce this region easily, so it establishes that the chain works before you go looking for the limits. If 100 Hz is silent, fix that before interpreting anything lower.
- Walk down towards 20 HzMove down in steps and note where the tone stops being a note and becomes a faint pressure, then nothing. That transition point is your system's practical low-frequency limit.
- Run the 13-step bass stepperThe stepper covers the same thirteen frequencies every time, which is what makes two devices comparable. Use it rather than freehand tuning when you want a result you can repeat.
- Compare 40 Hz against 80 HzThe built-in A/B pair is chosen deliberately: 80 Hz is well within reach for most speakers, 40 Hz is not. Flipping between them tells you quickly whether real sub-bass is present or whether you are only hearing the harmonics.
- Hunt for rattles, then check both channelsIf something buzzes, hold the frequency and move objects on the desk, then the device itself. Finish by checking left and right separately — a bass driver failing on one side is a common and easily missed fault.
What the results mean
Where your bass actually starts
The frequency below which you hear nothing is the useful output. Laptops and phones commonly stop somewhere between 100 and 200 Hz; decent bookshelf speakers reach 50–60 Hz; a subwoofer is what gets you meaningfully below that. None of those numbers is a fault.
A note versus a pressure
Around and below 40 Hz, bass stops being pitched and becomes something you feel. If a 30 Hz tone is sensed rather than heard, that is the expected behaviour of both your hearing and your speakers, not a defect.
Harmonics pretending to be bass
Small drivers fed a 40 Hz tone often produce audible distortion at 80 Hz and 120 Hz instead. It sounds like something is there, but the fundamental is missing. The A/B pair exists to expose this: if 40 Hz sounds thinner and higher-pitched than expected, you are hearing harmonics.
Rattle and buzz
A buzz tied to one narrow frequency is mechanical resonance — a panel, a port, a desk, a loose screw. It appears and disappears within a few hertz. Distortion, by contrast, follows the volume: it gets worse as you turn up and better as you turn down.
Channel imbalance in the bass
Bass is often summed to both channels in music, which hides a one-sided failure. Testing left and right separately here is the only reliable way to notice that one bass driver is doing less work than the other.
What it can detect
- The practical low-frequency limit of your speakers or headphones
- Missing sub-bass masked by audible harmonic distortion
- Mechanical rattles and enclosure resonances at specific frequencies
- Distortion that appears as bass volume rises
- One channel producing less bass than the other
Limits worth knowing
A browser can only report what the platform gives it. These are the honest boundaries of this page, so a result is never read as more than it is.
- There is no microphone in this tool, so it cannot measure your speaker's bass response, its distortion figure, or its output in dB. It plays a known tone and you report what you hear — the page's “WHAT THIS BASS TEST CAN AND CANNOT MEASURE” section states the same boundary.
- It cannot separate a driver limitation from a room effect. Bass is dominated by room acoustics: the same speakers in a different position, or you in a different chair, can change the audible level of a 60 Hz tone dramatically. Moving your head half a metre is a legitimate diagnostic step.
- It cannot tell you whether a rattle is inside the speaker or somewhere else in the room. Only physically isolating the object can do that.
- Bluetooth speakers apply their own bass processing — dynamic EQ, harmonic bass enhancement, limiters — so a Bluetooth result describes the speaker's DSP as much as its driver.
- Sustained loud low frequencies can physically damage small drivers. This is the one range where an over-enthusiastic test can break something, so keep the volume moderate.
Tips
- Judge bass with your eyes closed and your hand off the volume control. Bass perception is strongly influenced by expectation, and a level change part-way through invalidates the comparison.
- Move your head, then move the speakers. Room modes create nulls where a specific bass frequency almost vanishes; if 60 Hz returns when you lean sideways, the room is the cause and not the speaker.
- Use the 13-step stepper for device comparisons and note the step at which each one stops. That single number is more useful than any impression of “which has more bass”.
Troubleshooting
I hear nothing below 100 Hz.
On laptop, phone or monitor speakers this is normal physics rather than a fault — the drivers are too small. Confirm with headphones: if the same frequencies appear there, the speakers were the limit.
The bass sounds distorted rather than deep.
Lower the volume. If it cleans up, the driver was being pushed past its excursion limit and the distortion was the symptom. If it stays dirty at low volume, check for an equaliser or bass-boost setting in your OS or player, then test the other channel.
Something in the room buzzes at one frequency.
Hold that frequency and remove items from the desk one at a time — a phone, a mug, a loose panel and a nearby monitor stand are all common culprits. If the buzz follows the speaker when you move it, the enclosure or port is resonating.
One side has clearly less bass than the other.
Retest each channel with the same frequency and the same volume, then confirm the finding with the Speaker Balance Test. If the imbalance follows the speaker rather than the channel, it is a hardware fault; if it follows the channel, suspect the cable, the port or the OS balance setting.
Ready to run it?
20 Hz to 250 Hz tones for sub-bass reach, rattle hunting and distortion checks. Nothing to install, and it opens in this browser.