Audio Precision System 1 users?

[janneman]

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

[peranders]

You could get in touch with "pabo". He has an AP system.

www.anaview.com

[janneman]

Originally posted by peranders
You could get in touch with "pabo". He has an AP system.

www.anaview.com

Thanks P-A, I'll try that.

Jan Didden

[pinkmouse]

The AP tech support people are also very helpful.

[janneman]

Originally posted by pinkmouse
The AP tech support people are also very helpful.

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

[pinkmouse]

I used to have a direct email address, I'll see if I can dig it out.

[SpittinLLama]

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

[janneman]

Originally posted by SpittinLLama
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. [snip]-SL

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!

Originally posted by SpittinLLama
[snip]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

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

[SpittinLLama]

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

[MOER]

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