Runs in your browser · no install
Online Tone Generator
Every tone generator online plays a number. Almost none tell you which number you actually want. This one pairs the generator with the reasoning: what a frequency physically asks your speaker to do, which band belongs to which job, and where the useful range stops for the device in your hand.
By Nayeem, Software Developer of fastsavemedia.comLast reviewed
Tone generator
Generated live in your browser. Start quietly — high frequencies and square waves can be uncomfortable on headphones.
Hertz is a count, not a quality. One hertz is one complete cycle of pressure per second, so a 100 Hz tone asks the diaphragm to travel out and back a hundred times a second, and a 10,000 Hz tone asks it to do so ten thousand times. The mechanical demand is completely different at the two ends: low frequencies need displacement, which a phone speaker barely has, while high frequencies need speed, which it has in abundance. This is why a phone can sound crisp and still produce almost nothing below 100 Hz.
The practical consequence is that choosing a frequency is choosing a job. A tone that is perfect for loosening a lint mat is useless for checking treble extension, and a tone that proves a tweeter works will not move a droplet a single millimetre. The tables below map the job to the band so you are not guessing at a slider.
If your reason for being here is a specific fault rather than curiosity, skip ahead: liquid goes to water eject sound, dust goes to speaker cleaner sound, channel and balance questions go to the audio test suite, and overall device health goes to speaker test.
Result → Meaning → Next step
Find the row that matches what the tone produced. Every row ends in one action.
| What you heard | What it means | Do this next |
|---|---|---|
| Clean tone across the whole range | Driver and opening are healthy | Nothing mechanical — look at EQ, volume limits and app settings |
| Gargling or bubbling on low tones | Liquid still in the cavity | Run the water eject routine, then deep dry |
| Buzz in one narrow frequency window only | Debris or a lint mat resonating | Cleaner sound, then dry clean the grille |
| Buzz across the entire range | Torn diaphragm, loose coil or a distorting amplifier | Lower the volume and retry; if it persists, diagnose here |
| Buzz that changes when you press the chassis | Loose panel, case or a trapped particle outside the driver | Remove the case and retest before assuming speaker damage |
| Nothing below roughly 100 Hz | Normal low-end roll-off for a small driver | No action — this is a design limit, not a fault |
| Silent gap in the middle of the range | Driver band damage | Service assessment — no cleaning restores a missing band |
| Everything audible but thin and quiet | Opening partially blocked or output limited | Muffled diagnosis |
| One channel silent, the other fine | Channel, routing or a dead driver | Left/right audio test |
| No output at any frequency | Routing, mute state or amplifier fault | Speaker not working ladder |
| Tone plays but you hear nothing above 14 kHz | Hearing range, not hardware — high-frequency sensitivity falls with age | No action; judge the speaker on the mid band instead |
What is a hertz, in one paragraph
A hertz is one cycle per second. Sound is a pressure wave, so a 200 Hz tone means the speaker pushes air outward and pulls it back two hundred times every second, and your eardrum follows the same rhythm. Doubling the number raises the pitch by exactly one octave, which is why 440 Hz and 880 Hz sound like the same note at two heights. The audible range for a young adult runs from roughly 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, but that upper figure describes fresh hearing rather than typical hearing — sensitivity above about 15 kHz declines steadily from the teens onward, which is normal and not a defect in either you or the speaker. Frequency is separate from loudness: a 50 Hz tone and a 3 kHz tone can carry identical energy while the second one sounds dramatically louder, because human hearing is far more sensitive in the mid band. Keep that asymmetry in mind whenever you compare two tones by ear.
Safety limits worth respecting
- A pure tone is harder on a driver than music. Music spreads energy across the spectrum and moves constantly; a sustained sine concentrates it in one place. Keep holds under about thirty seconds.
- Do not run low tones at maximum volume. The low band demands the largest diaphragm excursion, and maximum volume is exactly where a small driver reaches its mechanical limit. Two-thirds is the working setting for everything on this page.
- Protect your hearing, not just the speaker. Pure tones are easy to underestimate in headphones because they lack the dynamics that normally trigger caution. Follow standard safe-listening guidance on level and duration [5].
- Stop if the tone turns to a crack or a rasp. That is mechanical distress, not a diagnostic result. Reduce volume immediately and retest at a lower level.
- Keep pets out of the room for high-frequency runs. Dogs and cats hear well above the human ceiling, so a tone that is silent to you can be genuinely unpleasant to them.
What a browser tone generator cannot do
- It is not a hearing test. A real assessment controls the level in calibrated decibels, in a quiet room, through calibrated transducers. A web page controls none of those, so an inaudible tone here tells you nothing clinical. If you have a genuine hearing concern, see a professional.
- It cannot measure your speaker’s frequency response. Response measurement needs a calibrated microphone and a controlled environment [4]. What you can do by ear is find the edges and spot the gaps, which is enough for a diagnosis.
- It cannot reach a phone’s earpiece. Media audio does not route to the call speaker on iOS or Android, so no browser tone tests it.
- It cannot exceed your output hardware. The generator can request 22 kHz, but the sample rate, the amplifier and the driver decide what is actually produced.
- It is not a repair. Tones diagnose and, in the water and dust cases, assist. Cleaning happens on the cleaning page; repair routing is on how to fix phone speaker.
Which page do you actually want?
| Your question | Right page |
|---|---|
| I want to pick and play a specific frequency | This page |
| Is my left/right correct and balanced? | Audio test |
| Is this phone speaker healthy before I buy it? | Speaker test |
| I want a ready-made cleaning tone, not a slider | Speaker cleaner sound |
| I want the one-tap clearing routine | Clear my speaker |
| There is water in the speaker | Water eject sound |
| It sounds dull but works | Muffled diagnosis |
| No sound at all | Speaker not working |
Sources & Citations
- W3C, Web Audio API — OscillatorNode. w3.org/TR/webaudio#OscillatorNode — defines the sine, square, sawtooth and triangle waveform types and the frequency parameter used by this generator.
- W3C, Web Audio API — GainNode. w3.org/TR/webaudio#GainNode — level control and why abrupt starts and stops produce audible clicks.
- International Organization for Standardization, ISO 16:1975 — Acoustics: Standard tuning frequency (Standard musical pitch). iso.org/standard/3601.html — establishes A = 440 Hz.
- International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC 60268-5 — Sound system equipment: Loudspeakers. webstore.iec.ch — the measurement conditions required for a genuine frequency-response figure.
- World Health Organization, Make Listening Safe. who.int/activities/making-listening-safe — safe listening level and duration guidance.
Step by step
Decide what the tone is for before you touch the slider
Clearing liquid, shifting dust, testing range, finding a rattle and setting a reference pitch each need a different frequency. Choosing at random is why most people conclude a tone generator “did nothing”. Use the job table further down to pick a starting number.Remove the case and set a repeatable volume
Take off any case, set media volume to roughly two-thirds, and keep that setting for every repetition. A pure tone at maximum volume adds amplifier distortion that you will hear as a buzz and then misdiagnose as a damaged driver.Start low and move upward, never the reverse
Begin around 100 Hz and raise the frequency gradually. Starting high and dropping means you meet the driver’s hardest working region while your ears are still adjusting, and quiet low-end faults get missed. Rising order also makes the roll-off point obvious.Hold each frequency for only a few seconds
Three to five seconds is enough to judge a tone. A sustained sine deposits continuous energy into one part of the voice coil, unlike music which constantly moves that energy around, so long holds heat a small driver for no diagnostic gain.Note the two edges of the usable band
Move down until the tone stops being audible and becomes a faint buzz or nothing — that is the low roll-off. Then move up until it thins out or disappears. On a phone the low edge is normally somewhere between 70 and 150 Hz depending on the model, and that is a design limit rather than a fault.Isolate any buzz you find
Park the tone at the exact frequency where the buzz appears, then press gently on the chassis, then on the case, then hold the device by its edges only. If pressing changes the buzz, the source is a loose panel or the case. If nothing changes it, the source is inside the speaker cavity.Choose a waveform deliberately
Sine is a single pure frequency and is the correct default for every diagnostic in this list. Square and sawtooth contain strong harmonics, which makes them louder and harsher at the same setting — useful for exposing a rattle quickly, misleading for judging whether a driver reproduces the fundamental.Convert the result into one next page
Gargling or bubbling means liquid; a narrow buzz means debris; a missing band means driver damage; nothing at all means routing or an amplifier fault. The verdict table below names the page for each outcome so the test ends in an action.
Device reference
Frequency by job — pick the row that matches your reason, not the loudest tone:
| Job | Frequency to use | Waveform | Why this band |
|---|---|---|---|
| Push water out of a speaker cavity | 150–185 Hz (165 Hz is the common choice) | Sine | Maximum diaphragm excursion the driver can sustain; enough air movement to displace a droplet |
| Loosen dry dust and lint | 120–200 Hz, then a slow sweep | Sine | Low band vibrates the mesh; the sweep prevents one fixed resonance doing all the work |
| Find the low roll-off point | Descend from 200 Hz to 40 Hz | Sine | Reveals where the driver simply stops producing output |
| Check treble extension | 8 kHz to 16 kHz | Sine | Above this, most adult hearing, not the speaker, is the limit |
| Locate a rattle | Sweep slowly, then hold at the buzz | Square exposes it fastest | Resonance appears in a narrow window and vanishes either side |
| Reference pitch for tuning | 440 Hz | Sine | International standard tuning frequency [3] |
| Check a channel is alive | 1 kHz | Sine | Mid-band; every working driver reproduces it, so silence means a real fault |
| Compare two speakers fairly | 1 kHz, fixed volume | Sine | Sits near the ear’s most sensitive region, so level differences are obvious |
Band reference — what each region of the spectrum actually does:
| Band | Range | What you perceive | Small-speaker reality |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sub-bass | 20–60 Hz | Felt more than heard | Phones and laptops produce essentially none |
| Bass | 60–250 Hz | Weight and body | The working band for water and dust routines |
| Low mid | 250–500 Hz | Warmth, boxiness | Where a muffled speaker loses definition first |
| Mid | 500 Hz–2 kHz | Voice, presence | Strongest region on almost every phone speaker |
| Upper mid | 2–6 kHz | Clarity, harshness | Where a blocked grille is most audible as dullness |
| Treble | 6–12 kHz | Detail, air | First band lost to a lint mat |
| Top octave | 12–20 kHz | Barely tonal | Audibility here declines with age, independent of hardware |
Waveform comparison at the same frequency and the same volume setting:
| Waveform | Harmonic content | Perceived character | Best used for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sine | Fundamental only | Smooth, pure, quietest of the four | Every measurement; the default |
| Triangle | Odd harmonics, rolling off fast | Slightly brighter than sine | Gentler alternative when sine is inaudible |
| Square | Strong odd harmonics | Hard, buzzy, noticeably louder | Provoking a rattle you cannot otherwise find |
| Sawtooth | All harmonics | Harshest of the four | Rare — stress checks only, briefly |
Frequently asked questions
What is a tone generator used for?
It produces one steady frequency so you can test or treat a specific thing rather than guess with music. The four common uses are pushing trapped water out of a speaker cavity with a low tone around 165 Hz, loosening dust with a low tone or a slow sweep, finding where a driver stops producing output, and locating a rattle by parking a tone at the frequency where the buzz appears.
What does Hz mean in sound?
Hertz counts complete pressure cycles per second. A 500 Hz tone means the speaker completes five hundred out-and-back movements every second. Higher numbers are higher pitches, and doubling the number raises the pitch by exactly one octave. Human hearing covers roughly 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, with the upper limit falling naturally with age.
Which frequency is best for cleaning a phone speaker?
Between 120 and 200 Hz for the initial work, because that band produces the largest diaphragm movement a small driver can sustain and therefore the most air displacement. A slow sweep afterwards helps, since a fixed tone only excites one resonance while a sweep passes through many. Anything above about 1 kHz moves too little air to shift a particle.
Is 440 Hz special?
Yes, by agreement rather than by physics. ISO 16 defines A above middle C as 440 Hz, which is why instrument tuners default to it. For speaker diagnostics it has no advantage; 1 kHz is a better general-purpose reference because it sits near the ear’s most sensitive region.
Can a tone generator damage my speaker?
At sensible levels, no. The risk comes from sustained low-frequency tones at maximum volume, because low frequencies demand the greatest diaphragm excursion and maximum volume is where a small driver meets its mechanical limit. Keep the volume around two-thirds and each hold under thirty seconds and there is no meaningful risk.
Why can I not hear the low frequencies on my phone?
Because the driver is physically too small to move the required volume of air. Most phone speakers roll off somewhere between 70 and 150 Hz, and below that point they produce almost nothing regardless of volume. Hearing nothing at 40 Hz on a phone is normal and is not evidence of a fault.
What is the difference between sine and square waves?
A sine wave contains only its fundamental frequency, so it is the honest choice for any measurement. A square wave adds strong odd harmonics, which makes it sound louder and harsher at the same setting and makes it very effective at provoking a rattle — but useless for judging whether a driver actually reproduces the fundamental you selected.
Is this a hearing test?
No. A hearing test controls the presentation level in calibrated decibels, in a quiet environment, with calibrated equipment. A browser cannot control any of those, so an inaudible tone here proves nothing about your hearing. Treat any hearing concern as a matter for a qualified professional.