Alternatives to Spek
Drops an audio file on the window and draws its spectrogram, so you can see where the quality really stops. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Spek
Drops an audio file on the window and draws its spectrogram, so you can see where the quality really stops.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Spek.
Sonic Visualiser
Inspect the contents of audio files through waveform and analysis displays.
Sonic Visualiser is also free and open source on Windows, macOS and Linux, adding layered waveform and analysis displays and plug-ins, at the cost of more complexity.
Friture
Visualize live audio with scopes, spectra and spectrograms.
Friture draws spectrograms and spectra of live audio input rather than of an audio file, so it cannot check a file's quality directly.
Steinberg SpectraLayers
Spectral audio editor for noise removal and AI-assisted source separation.
Steinberg SpectraLayers is paid Windows and macOS software that lets you edit the spectrogram and separate sources, not only view it as Spek does.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Audacity
A multi-track audio editor and recorder that has been the free default for twenty-five years.
foobar2000
A light, deeply configurable audio player for people who care about their local music library.
Voxengo SPAN
Inspect an audio signal with a real-time spectrum analyzer plug-in.
cava
Console audio visualiser that draws a live frequency spectrum.
Blue Cat's FreqAnalyst
View an audio signal's frequency spectrum in a production host.
iZotope Insight 2
Professional metering suite for loudness, true peak and spectral analysis.
