Test bass from 20 to 200 Hz with tones, sweeps and pulses, and find where your speaker or headphones stop responding.
This tool plays pure sine tones between 20 and 200 Hz, the range where bass lives. The steps follow the nominal one-third octave frequencies (20, 25, 31.5, 40, 50, 63, 80, 100, 125, 160 and 200 Hz), the same ones used in acoustic analysis. In Guided mode you hear 9 tones, from 125 Hz down to 20 Hz, and answer whether the sound was clean, distorted or absent. The result gives the lowest clean frequency and the lowest audible one, and points out gaps in the middle of the range. The Single tone, Sweep and Pulses modes are for finding the exact point where the sound fades, hearing port noise or tracking down loose parts. What the test measures is what you perceive, which also depends on volume, position and room. It does not replace a measurement microphone, but it answers the practical question well: does this device play bass or not?
Low sound is a long wave. At 343 m/s, a 20 Hz tone has a wavelength of 17.2 m, and a 100 Hz tone has 3.4 m. To radiate waves like that, a speaker has to move a lot of air, which is why subwoofers have large cones and ported cabinets, while a phone speaker, with a few millimeters of travel, plays almost nothing down there.
The ear also helps hide bass. Per ISO 226:2003, the hearing threshold of a pure tone is 78.5 dB SPL at 20 Hz, 59.5 dB at 31.5 Hz, 44.0 dB at 50 Hz and 26.5 dB at 100 Hz. In other words, the same device that sounds full of bass at 100 Hz can seem silent at 20 Hz without being broken.
Clean down to 25 Hz or lower points to deep bass, typical of capable subwoofers and good headphones. Between 31.5 and 40 Hz is the territory of a good home subwoofer. Between 50 and 63 Hz you find bookshelf speakers and small subwoofers. From 80 to 100 Hz, laptop speakers and soundbars without a subwoofer. With no clean tone below 125 Hz, the device is too small, or the volume was too low for the ear to pick it up.
These examples are tendencies, not manufacturer rules. Two devices of the same type can end up far apart, and the room can push the result either way.
Test in silence, in the real listening position and with no loose objects nearby, because shelves and glass rattle at specific frequencies. Repeat the test with the subwoofer in another corner of the room: if the gaps move to different frequencies, the cause was the room, not the device.
With headphones, the fit on your ear matters a lot. An air leak can remove a good part of the bass below 100 Hz, and the same music sounds fuller once you adjust the headphones.
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Open Guided mode and answer 9 tones from 125 Hz down to 20 Hz. The result shows the lowest frequency the subwoofer played cleanly. To hear what happens in the middle of the range, use the 20 to 200 Hz Sweep and tap mark when the sound changes. Put the subwoofer where it will really sit, because its position in the room changes the result.
Start with the volume low. Loud bass can damage speakers and headphones and tire your hearing. Set the device volume to about 30%, raise it gradually and stop if you hear crackling, hissing or the cone bottoming out. With headphones, keep the volume lower still.
This control only sets the signal. Your device volume matters more: start low and raise it gradually. When you press play, the sound starts at a reduced level and rises over 2.5 seconds (in the guided test, only the first tone).
There are 9 tones, from 125 Hz down to 20 Hz. For each one, say what you heard or felt. At the end the result shows how low your device responded.
Wavelength 8.6 m and period 25.0 ms. A normal ear needs about 51.1 dB SPL to hear this tone (ISO 226:2003 threshold).
The tone stops by itself after 60 seconds. Change the frequency while it plays to find the point where it fades.
Tap the mark button the moment the sound changes. The frequency at that instant is recorded.
The sweep is logarithmic: it takes the same time for each octave. Sudden buzzing or vibration is usually a loose part or the subwoofer port, not the speaker's limit.
Wavelength 8.6 m and period 25.0 ms. A normal ear needs about 51.1 dB SPL to hear this tone (ISO 226:2003 threshold).
Pulses make it easier to notice bass near the limit of the device and expose loose parts and port noise.