Hi all,
Since the time I got my 2nd hand AP S1 I have been exploring its capabilities. One is the FastTest procedure which, in a single measurement, measures THD, IMD, noise and a few other things IIRC. Unfortunately, I never have been able to get it to work as shown in the manual with the selftest. I have less resolution and the selftest looks much worse than it should.
Anybody out there having used FastTest?
Jan Didden
Since the time I got my 2nd hand AP S1 I have been exploring its capabilities. One is the FastTest procedure which, in a single measurement, measures THD, IMD, noise and a few other things IIRC. Unfortunately, I never have been able to get it to work as shown in the manual with the selftest. I have less resolution and the selftest looks much worse than it should.
Anybody out there having used FastTest?
Jan Didden
pinkmouse said:
Well, the AP S1 is no longer supported. I have tried my local Benelux dealer but he is only interested in selling me an upgrade. Not really helpfull so far. But maybe I should try one more time.
I will try to get together a clear concise description of what I missing this weekend.
Jan Didden
You're not running AP DOS are you? Describe what you are doing and I will see if I can be of any help. I have an AP 1 system. Use to run AP DOS for years and a couple things are nicer in the DOS version but the AP WIN has too many other goodies. Never did get AP to fix the append bug that crops up in certain graphs 
They claimed it was fixed in version 2.2 if I remember right (last ver is 2.24) but I was able to reproduce it on 3 difference machines running Win 95, XP and Win 2000 so not fully fixed.
<rant>
For a company that is all about taking graphs their software really sucks when it comes to doing graphs. Poor control, horrible export options, colors not maintained when adding graphs on to others. Lots of complaints I have in this area. Too much like a PC software company.
<end rant>
-SL
They claimed it was fixed in version 2.2 if I remember right (last ver is 2.24) but I was able to reproduce it on 3 difference machines running Win 95, XP and Win 2000 so not fully fixed.<rant>
For a company that is all about taking graphs their software really sucks when it comes to doing graphs. Poor control, horrible export options, colors not maintained when adding graphs on to others. Lots of complaints I have in this area. Too much like a PC software company.
<end rant>
-SL
SpittinLLama said:
Hi SL,
I need to get home to exactly reproduce it. I'm running the Win version of the software with a PCMCIA interface card. I basically follow the tutorial for set up of the FastTest, and at the end you should see a typical graph with is the fasttest spectrum of the generator itself. But it looks very different (much worse) in reality. So let me get back to you this weekend. Appreciate yor help!
SpittinLLama said:
Quite right. When they formed their company as disgruntled Tek employees that were denied what they thought was a great project, they were the first, and proved their thinking was spot on. The software reflects the software thinking of those times (1984 or thereabouts). But s/w conceptual thinking has moved on, new companies entered the field, and they try to drag along. The Win version still is like the original DOS version in many respects with a Win look. I don't know how there new systems look, software wise?
Jan Didden
If they had made an Apple version way back then (which would have been far superior compared to DOS) then the graph short comings would have been caught long ago.
Didn't know they came from Tek, thanks for the info tidbit. The company I work for has AP2 and ATS systems but I have only used the ATS much besides the AP1. ATS software seems pretty much the same. AP2700 software looks pretty similar but I haven't really used it.
-SL
Didn't know they came from Tek, thanks for the info tidbit. The company I work for has AP2 and ATS systems but I have only used the ATS much besides the AP1. ATS software seems pretty much the same. AP2700 software looks pretty similar but I haven't really used it.
-SL
AP SYSTEM 1
Dear Jan,
We run 7 of these system 1 Audio precisions and they do not run the fast test, so we just have never bothered. AP do not support these older machines at all. Yes their software has problems but we have found it runs better on Windows 98. The main reason we use Windows 98 is that it treats the parallel port differently to Windows XP. We use the parallel port to run their codes for our automated testing procedures. We have designed special switching boces which take the AP codes from the parallel port and we use them to do all the input and line level switching on multichannel amplifiers. This saves us from having to plug and re-plug cables during test. In addition we use the codes to run relays which switch in the various load impedances for a particular test.
We have tried XP with no luck so all our newer computers which come with XP we convert back to Win98 for this sole purpose.
AP has some wierd ideas on how to treat customers.
We had three of our APs go down and they wanted $1,000 excluding freight each way to repair EACH mochine. I bought one of their service manuals ($250 mind you) and we spent about one day and all three APs were repaired. Total parts cost was less than $3.00.
So unfortunately you just have to live with these old beasts. AP told me that they have no interest in changing their software to accomodate the Win XP parallel port issue.
Stephen Mantz
Zed Audio Copr.,
Los Angeles
Sunny CA
Dear Jan,
We run 7 of these system 1 Audio precisions and they do not run the fast test, so we just have never bothered. AP do not support these older machines at all. Yes their software has problems but we have found it runs better on Windows 98. The main reason we use Windows 98 is that it treats the parallel port differently to Windows XP. We use the parallel port to run their codes for our automated testing procedures. We have designed special switching boces which take the AP codes from the parallel port and we use them to do all the input and line level switching on multichannel amplifiers. This saves us from having to plug and re-plug cables during test. In addition we use the codes to run relays which switch in the various load impedances for a particular test.
We have tried XP with no luck so all our newer computers which come with XP we convert back to Win98 for this sole purpose.
AP has some wierd ideas on how to treat customers.
We had three of our APs go down and they wanted $1,000 excluding freight each way to repair EACH mochine. I bought one of their service manuals ($250 mind you) and we spent about one day and all three APs were repaired. Total parts cost was less than $3.00.
So unfortunately you just have to live with these old beasts. AP told me that they have no interest in changing their software to accomodate the Win XP parallel port issue.
Stephen Mantz
Zed Audio Copr.,
Los Angeles
Sunny CA
Re: AP SYSTEM 1
Hi Stephen,
Sorry for the long absence. I also bought their service manuals, paid 350 Dutch Guilders a couple of years back (Abouth 160 US $ at the time).
Haven't needed them yet though (crossing fingers), but I must say they are very complete. That, and the software experiences, show that basically they are a hardware outfit (and pretty good at that).
Do you (or anybody else) have some spare option boards they want to sell? Like the IMD option, MEM option?
Jan Didden
Jan Didden
MOER said:
Hi Stephen,
Sorry for the long absence. I also bought their service manuals, paid 350 Dutch Guilders a couple of years back (Abouth 160 US $ at the time).
Haven't needed them yet though (crossing fingers), but I must say they are very complete. That, and the software experiences, show that basically they are a hardware outfit (and pretty good at that).
Do you (or anybody else) have some spare option boards they want to sell? Like the IMD option, MEM option?
Jan Didden
Jan Didden
SpittinLLama said:You're not running AP DOS are you? Describe what you are doing and I will see if I can be of any help. I have an AP 1 system. Use to run AP DOS for years and a couple things are nicer in the DOS version but the AP WIN has too many other goodies. Never did get AP to fix the append bug that crops up in certain graphs
<rant>
For a company that is all about taking graphs their software really sucks when it comes to doing graphs. Poor control, horrible export options, colors not maintained when adding graphs on to others. Lots of complaints I have in this area. Too much like a PC software company.
<end rant>
-SL
Hi SL, Stephen,
I again did their tutorial on the FastTest today. I attach the test file so maybe you could see what happens on your machine. Basically with this test loaded and hitting GO you should see a raw FFT of the spectrum of the test signal (ISO31). It should show a forest of 31 frequencies all at level of about 50mV. This is shown in the tutorial manual on page 6-24. (This is the actual page number, note that page- and chapter numbers in the TOC are wrong).
In my case I see wildly varying levels, especially at the higher frequencies. See attached .pdf
I have a hunch what the problem is, though. When I load the furnished ISO31 waveform in the digital analyzer (generator portion), and then set the analog generator to "DGen" input, I get "Warning (19001): Waveform load overrun-file is longet than the selected buffer". Unfortunately, I cannot find any error message listing in any of the documentation I have. I haven't done any buffer selection, but I guess that is the DSP memory. I have standard DSP memory, no extended mem option. Could that be the problem? If so, I could probably cure it by generating a new dig waveform that has less samples?
Jan Didden
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