HydrogenAudio

Hydrogenaudio Forum => Listening Tests => Topic started by: andy o on 2009-09-06 22:54:03

Title: Test tone generator?
Post by: andy o on 2009-09-06 22:54:03
Hi, I was just looking for a quick way to test how low/high my speakers/headphones/hearing can go, and came upon this program called Test Tone Generator (http://www.esseraudio.com/Test-Tone-Generator-Windows-Software-Generate-Test-Signals-Sine-Pink-Noise-Crest-Factor-Loudspeaker-Audio-Test.htm). You probably already know it. It basically does noise and sine waves of whatever frequency, does sweeps, and works in mono and stereo. Simple enough. Before I cough up the $32 for it though, I'd like to know if there are similar better (or cheaper) programs.

Thanks.
Title: Test tone generator?
Post by: Sebastian Mares on 2009-09-06 23:20:01
Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) and foobar2000 (http://www.foobar2000.org/) can if you open the URL tone://xyz where xyz is the frequency. foobar2000 doesn't support any settings other than the frequency and the length AFAIK, Audacity lets you select a bit more.
Title: Test tone generator?
Post by: pawelq on 2009-09-06 23:28:42
This one is not bad, though limited to 20 kHz

http://pagesperso-orange.fr/vb-audio/us/pr...r/generator.htm (http://pagesperso-orange.fr/vb-audio/us/products/generator/generator.htm)

It's free.
Title: Test tone generator?
Post by: andy o on 2009-09-06 23:41:37
Excellent, thanks a lot. VB generator seems to do pretty much the same.
Title: Test tone generator?
Post by: andy o on 2009-09-07 00:38:55
OK, some stuff is happening. Been testing sine waves, and VB generator seems to output at 44.1 kHz. If I set Vista32/ATI HDMI and Win 7/whatever comes with HP DV5 laptops (tried both in different PCs), to 48 kHz output, I can hear a background overtone (I think it is an overtone). If I set Windows output to 96 kHz, it's less audible. If I set it to 192 kHz, it's inaudible and it sounds as pure as when I set it to 44.1 kHz.

This also happens with my ATI card and HDMI receiver (Pioneer VSX-01), even when my receiver takes 192 kHz, but downsamples to 96 kHz for processing (and shows "96 kHz" in the display as if it was receiving 96). Am I correct in assuming that upsampling and outputting in Windows at 192 kHz and then downsampling in the receiver to 96 will yield a better result than just upsampling and outputting in Windows at 96 kHz? Am I right also to assume that my receiver's resampling is better than Windows'?
Title: Test tone generator?
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2009-09-14 13:58:34
Hi, I was just looking for a quick way to test how low/high my speakers/headphones/hearing can go...


The Audio Rightmark program (freeware) provides a lot more than just a tone generator. The speaker testing module might relate to headphone testing.