AU — 1 kHz Sine Tone
A pure 1 kHz sine tone stored as a Sun/NeXT AU file — big-endian 16-bit PCM, 3 seconds, 44.1 kHz mono. A compact reference for AU decoding and format conversion.
Rendered preview of the au file (129.2 KB). Download above for the original.
Specifications
- Sample Rate
- 44100 Hz
- Bit Depth
- 16
- Channels
- 1
- Frequency
- 1000 Hz
- Duration Sec
- 3
- Byte Order
- big-endian
- Codec
- PCM (uncompressed)
What is a .au file?
AU (Sun/NeXT audio) is a simple audio format with a short header followed by sample data, historically using 8-bit mu-law or linear PCM encoding. It is a legacy Unix-world format that is compact and easy to parse. It appears in older systems and Java audio contexts.
How to use this file
Use an example AU to test legacy audio decoding, mu-law handling, and converters or players that must support older Unix and Java sound formats.
How to use this file for testing
“AU — 1 kHz Sine Tone” is a deterministic Novus Examples fixture for Audio analysis, Conversion testing. Pure tones, sweeps, and noise with known frequencies and levels for testing spectrum, level, and waveform tools.
Documented properties for this file: 16-bit · 1 ch. Compare results against paired or grouped companions on this page when present (clean↔damaged, searchable↔scanned, or format twins) so scores stay reproducible across runs.
Download the file once, keep the path stable in CI or local scripts, and treat the spec table as the contract: dimensions, seeds, field lists, and roles are intentional. Corrupt or invalid samples are labelled as such — expect parsers to fail loudly rather than silently accept them.
Media fixtures are short and synthetic by design. Prefer waveform or transcript ground truth in the same group when measuring ASR, trim, upscale, or sync tools; do not assume broadcast-quality masters.
Code examples
<audio controls preload="none" src="1khz-tone.au"></audio>Related files
- aiffAIFF — 1 kHz Sine ToneA pure 1 kHz sine tone stored as AIFF — Apple's big-endian 16-bit PCM container, 3 seconds, 44.1 kHz mono. A clean reference for testing AIFF decoders and WAV↔AIFF conversion.
- aiffAIFF — 440 Hz Sine ToneA pure 440 Hz sine tone stored as AIFF — Apple's big-endian 16-bit PCM container, 3 seconds, 44.1 kHz mono. A clean reference for testing AIFF decoders and WAV↔AIFF conversion.
- auAU — 440 Hz Sine ToneA pure 440 Hz sine tone stored as a Sun/NeXT AU file — big-endian 16-bit PCM, 3 seconds, 44.1 kHz mono. A compact reference for AU decoding and format conversion.
- wav1 kHz Tone @ 16000 Hz Sample Rate (WAV)A 1 kHz sine tone sampled at 16000 Hz — part of a sample-rate ladder (8/16/44.1/48/96 kHz) of the identical tone, for testing resampling, sample-rate detection, and aliasing.
- wav1 kHz Tone @ 44100 Hz Sample Rate (WAV)A 1 kHz sine tone sampled at 44100 Hz — part of a sample-rate ladder (8/16/44.1/48/96 kHz) of the identical tone, for testing resampling, sample-rate detection, and aliasing.
- wav1 kHz Tone @ 48000 Hz Sample Rate (WAV)A 1 kHz sine tone sampled at 48000 Hz — part of a sample-rate ladder (8/16/44.1/48/96 kHz) of the identical tone, for testing resampling, sample-rate detection, and aliasing.
Generated by generation/audio_formats.py. Free for any use, no attribution required — license.