What measurement devices do you use?

[jimluu]

Just wonder what's good to use for measuring frequency response, distortion, etc.at a budget of less than $2k thanks. jim.

[Jed]

Just wonder what's good to use for measuring frequency response, distortion, etc.at a budget of less than $2k thanks. jim.

You don't need to spend that much.

ARTA software for distortion and FR testing
LSP CAD Standard
Behringer Mic and mixer board
USB Transit soundcard

About $600 total.

[jimluu]

Thanks Jed.
I was looking at TrueRTA for FR testing as well. Is there any significant difference b/w this and ARTA? TrueRTA is a bit cheaper otherwise.

btw..what is a usb transit soundcard? I have an creative audigy platinum card, will it work?

thanks. jim

[sprint_9]

btw..what is a usb transit soundcard? I have an creative audigy platinum card, will it work?

Im interested in this as well as I might buy a soundcard for my comp in the near future, might as well get two birds with one stone.

[augerpro]

M Audio Transit, it's a usb soundcard. I use one, works great.

[Dennis H]

I was looking at TrueRTA for FR testing as well. Is there any significant difference b/w this and ARTA? TrueRTA is a bit cheaper otherwise.

Yes, ARTA does much more than TrueRTA, albeit with a steeper learning curve. You can design a speaker with ARTA, gated chirp measurements, distortion measurements, etc. It does most of what the uber-measurement system Praxis does at 1/10 the price. Heckuva deal.

[moniker]

Good choices Jedd. :T

In fact, what you suggest is what I have. :T

As for the Transit, it is inexpensive, small, lite, simple, accurate, powered through the USB port (no wall wart necessary) and can be used with a laptop as well as a desktop computer through the USB ports. It is completely portable for moving around with the laptop. Heck you can check out your friends' systems with ease. :T

I also have the full boat TrueRTA and while it works very well, it does not hold a candle to ARTA. I have yet to fully wring out ARTA, but I have had it long enough to get several free updates from the writer. That is great service at no additional cost. ARTA is a home run for what it can do versus its price. :T

The Bheringer MCM8000 mic and their cheapist mic powering mixer-preamp are solid, well made units that function together beautifully. Another home run for the price. :T

Now all I need is the time to fully learn to use these goodies. :B

[Exocer]

I already have the ECM8000 and mixer board and use it with REW, but was also wondering if my X-Fi would be okay for distortion testing?

It makes little sense for me to buy a USB sound card when I already have a working sound card in the PC. :T

[Exocer]

* RME Fireface 800, RME HDSP
* M-Audio Audiophile 2496, USB Transit, Delta 44, Mobile USB Pro
* EMU 1820M, 1616M, 0404USB
* YAMAHA GO46 and Terratec Firewire FWX24 (sample rate manually tuned)
* Marian Trace Alpha, Terratec EWX 24/96
* Digigram VxPocket 440 - a notebook PCMCIA card
* Echo Layla 24, Echo Indigo I/O (notebook)
* TASCAM US-122 - USB audio
* Creative Soundblaster X-Fi (works on all sampling frequencies)
* Ego-Sys U24 USB and Waveterminal, ESI Quatafire 610
* Creative Soundblaster X-Fi (sound creation mode),
* Creative Soundblaster Live 24 and Extigy-USB, Audigy ZS laptop, but only at 48kHz sampling frequency,
* Turtle Beach Pinnacle and Fuji (good old ISA cards)

Discovered by WillyD

[ergo]

I was looking for a thread with right heading and this old one fits

I have a tendency to over complicate my speaker measurements and have acquired punch of different tools to do it with. CLIO is one and there one has full control over output voltage... but when using Fuzzmeasure with soundcard then it's always a bit of hassle to calibrate the amplifier output.

The other week I noticed that these type of very cheap scopes are available at Amazon etc... so I bought one

http://etepontech.com/a/Products/Products/20180628/80.html

The purpose I'm gonna use it for it basically mainly the calibration of the sine sweep when doing speaker measurements.. and for that it works well and appears accurate enough. Also just to check if signal flows it will be of use. It's of course not gonna cut it for any critical work. Surprisingly even 2.8V AC input still looks noisy, so clearly corners have been cut.

I also tried it with a 1 or 2 sec sine sweep - one can nicely use the OK button to stop the capture at mid sweep and get a reading. With Fuzzmeasure that'll be good as Fuzzmeasure does not generate single frequency sines. So in past I've either used a very slow sweep from 50Hz..100Hz and use a DMM or then use a big scope... but latter is a bit uncomfortable.

Anyhow - perhaps some of you will also like the idea. There are punch of different models available at low prices. I chose this one as the images showed it'll do the Vrms reading for sure.

[Evil Twin]

This appears to be a sound practice for the problem of using Fuzzmeasure... pun intended.

I use a Teledyne-LeCroy oscilloscope for the very same purpose, one of their lower cost models, not the 8 channel model for serious work. It is remarkable what an be bought in an oscilloscope these days for under $500...

[DS-21]

I was looking for a thread with right heading and this old one fits

I have a tendency to over complicate my speaker measurements and have acquired punch of different tools to do it with. CLIO is one and there one has full control over output voltage... but when using Fuzzmeasure with soundcard then it's always a bit of hassle to calibrate the amplifier output.

The other week I noticed that these type of very cheap scopes are available at Amazon etc... so I bought one

http://etepontech.com/a/Products/Products/20180628/80.html

[ATTACH=CONFIG]29690[/ATTACH]

The purpose I'm gonna use it for it basically mainly the calibration of the sine sweep when doing speaker measurements.. and for that it works well and appears accurate enough. Also just to check if signal flows it will be of use.

Interesting! I’ve never bothered with absolute SPL - generally I’ll measure all the drivers in a speaker in one go across all the angles, with the same volume settings. But if that’s all it costs to get to the next step of data, why not?

[ergo]

The benefit of doing the level calibration is when sharing or comparing the results. Jon, Evil Twin and others post measurements and generally at 2.83V. Also HiFiCompass's site has 2.83V as one of the level for THD. So I like that part of it..

[DS-21]

The benefit of doing the level calibration is when sharing or comparing the results. Jon, Evil Twin and others post measurements and generally at 2.83V. Also HiFiCompass's site has 2.83V as one of the level for THD. So I like that part of it..

It’s certainly better to have more information than less. I’ve also never bothered with distortion measurements, except the relative kind to see how low a midrange or tweeter can reasonably be pushed. Otherwise, I’ve never considered it that important because of its tenuous relationship to audibility unless truly excessive.

Regardless, if there’s inexpensive equipment adequate to the task and calibrating voltage does not take long, there’s no good reason not to do so.

I couldn’t find yours on Amazon. What are the key terms one should look for in a the marketing copy for a little digital ‘scope?

[Scottg]

https://www.amazon.com/ETEPON-Oscilloscope-BNC-Clip-Assembled-Finished/dp/B07QDYFMM3/ref=pd_day0_hl_328_1/143-2193484-7665169?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B07QDYFMM3&pd_rd_r=c462411d-1466-4886-8995-fd941c5658ce&pd_rd_w=Np9YK&pd_rd_wg=6zJRC&pf_rd_p=cd872437-0036-44da-b76a-718df210c36e&pf_rd_r=A7AKNENQ37H097GW98TF&psc=1&refRID=A7AKNENQ37H097GW98TF

[Dave Bullet]

Software - free - either Speaker Workshop (Impedance and FR) or Room EQ Wizard (FR and distortion)
Microphone - ~ $80? - Behringer ECM8000 - any calibrated mic will do
Mic Pre-amp (to supply the 48v phantom power) - ~$60 - I use an AliExpress.com supplied one. Seems to work find and be linear
PC - $25 - Cheap 2Gb RAM / Core i3 or higher PC - running windows XP

the secret I've found is the soundcard. USB soundcards have variable timing (upto 12msec latency I found). this is useless when you need consistent impulse response if you are planning to use actual measured phase rather than HBT extracted phase (and inputting offsets into XO sim tools).

The lenovo above has a "hard wired" soundcard providing consistent impulse responses on the same driver (~ 2msec constant delay)

[Scottg]

-you will need a "Dual-Channel" measurement for good phase measurements. That it's a USB sound card shouldn't matter, but it does need to have the appropriate inputs and outputs (..and it should be either balanced to balanced or single-ended to single-ended). The least expensive is probably the UMC 204HD.

Arta pg. 11:

http://www.artalabs.hr/AppNotes/ARTA%20Handbook%20Version%202.4%20English.pdf

[DS-21]

Software: FuzzMeasure 4, WT3 in Parallels
Hardware: Focusrite 2i2 gen 2, Dayton/Cross Spectrum Labs microphone
Lazy Susan with a speaker stand on top

[Dave Bullet]

It’s certainly better to have more information than less. I’ve also never bothered with distortion measurements, except the relative kind to see how low a midrange or tweeter can reasonably be pushed. Otherwise, I’ve never considered it that important because of its tenuous relationship to audibility unless truly excessive.

Well to know if something is excessive or not, don't you have to measure

Hard cone breakup is my biggest concern hence knowing odd order peaks allows a practical decision to be made on XO point and slopes and whether a particular driver combination is going to give the power response and handling required.

[JonMarsh]

Software: Fuzzmeasure 4 on MacBook Pro, Audio Precision APx500 V4.2 software on Dell XPS15 (update and special hardware key on hand, no time to install) WT2 on Dell XPS15, REW on MacBook Pro

Hardware: 2014 MacBook Pro, TC Konnekt 8 with balanced microphone and line inputs and balanced monitoring output, Firewire interface connected via Thunderbolt adapter, dual ACCO Pacific 9200 preamp/mic kits with 4012 microphones with 7012 capsules;
Cambridge Audio 840e preamp. Aragon 8008 X3 power amplifier, and Schitt Vidar power amplifier.
Audio Precision APx555 analyzer. (focus on preamp and microphone was very low noise floor and wide bandwidth - ability to make meaningful and accurate distortion measurements to better than -80 dB in the audio band for 3rd harmonic to 15kHz fundamental (requires system bandwidth to 45kHz+)
Teledyne T3DSO1204 200MHz 4 channel scope.

Have built several lazy Susans for polar axis measurement, most sufficient to work with cabinets like the Wavecor Ardent (100 lb.)