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Schumann 2nd Harmonic
What plays here is a steady low tone with a slow throb running through it, one tone to each ear, and you need headphones for the throb to form at all. The resonance the file is named after sits near 14.3 Hz, below the bottom of human hearing and far below what a phone or laptop speaker can move air at. The named figure is the gap between the two tones, not a sound in the room.
Ready to play
Stack this under rain or a fire, keep the blend, and play it with your screen off. Slo, on iOS, Android and Mac.
What you are actually hearing
The audible part is a low hum, not far above the bottom of a speaking voice, holding at one level for the whole loop. Nothing rises, nothing arrives, nothing fades. That hum measures 213 Hz, and all four of the Schumann harmonic files here sit within a few hertz of it, so the speed of the pulse is the only thing separating one from another. Over headphones each ear gets its own tone and your hearing fills in the difference as that slow pulse. Over speakers both ears get both tones, it largely collapses, and you are left with the hum on its own.
You are not hearing 14.3 Hz. Nothing at that frequency is in the file in any form a speaker could turn into sound.
The resonance is real; the numbering is loose
Schumann resonances are standing electromagnetic waves in the cavity between the Earth’s surface and the ionosphere. Winfried Otto Schumann predicted them in 1952 from the geometry of that cavity, and instruments have measured them since. Lightning keeps them going, something on the order of fifty flashes a second worldwide. That part is ordinary geophysics and nobody disputes it.
The naming is where it gets loose. Doubling the 7.83 Hz fundamental would give 15.66, but the second mode measures nearer 14.3, because the cavity leaks energy and its modes do not fall in a neat series. They also drift by a few tenths of a hertz as the ionosphere changes through the day. “Second harmonic” is a convenient label rather than a description.
What the listening claims amount to
No clinical guideline or systematic review supports the health effects attached to listening to Schumann tones, and the evidence for binaural beats in general is thin: the Schumann Fundamental page works through a review of fourteen EEG studies that came out inconclusive. Take this as a low tone with a slow pulse in it, and nothing beyond that.
For a plain pitch with no beat at all, try the 174 Hz tone or the 396 Hz tone, and browse the rest from the sound library index. If the bare tone feels thin, the Schumann second harmonic under brown noise in the free sound mixer gives it something to rest against, though the pulse still needs headphones.
Frequently asked questions
Can I hear 14.3 Hz?
No. Human hearing runs down to roughly 20 Hz, and reproducing anything lower takes a large driver moving a lot of air. Phone and laptop speakers produce nothing there.
Why is the second mode 14.3 Hz rather than 15.66?
The Earth–ionosphere cavity loses energy, so its modes do not fall at simple multiples of the 7.83 Hz fundamental. The measured second mode sits near 14.3 Hz.
Do I need headphones?
Yes, for the pulse. The two tones are split between the ears and the beat only forms when each ear gets one of them. Over speakers both ears hear both tones.
Is this a recording of the Earth?
No. Schumann resonances are electromagnetic, not acoustic, so no microphone captures them. This file is two audible tones built to carry the 14.3 Hz figure as a difference.