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Glossary Science & Engineering

Hertz (Hz)

A hertz is one cycle per second, the unit of frequency; for sound it sets the pitch.

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In more detail

The note A above middle C is 440 Hz, and middle C is about 261.63 Hz. Each octave doubles the frequency. Humans hear roughly 20 Hz to 20 kHz, and speakers or headphones can be tested with generated tones.

Try these tools

Tone Generator

Play sine, square, sawtooth or triangle waves from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, pan left or right to test each speaker.

Microphone Test

Free online microphone test.

See also

  • Glossary Sample rate
    The sample rate is how many times per second a digital recording measures the sound wave, in hertz.
  • Glossary Spectrogram
    A spectrogram is a picture of sound that plots time across, frequency up and the strength of each frequency as colour.
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