measurement and analysis tools

[D_Dubya]

Newb alert ,first time / long time on these forums!

I just finished up my first project thanks to the many great threads on this forum and I'm happy with the results. But....I'm looking for a relatively simple and affordable solution to measure and analyze the speakers to further improve the design.

Short of the test tone CD and SPL meter method, are there any simple and straightforward software programs that can be used? Ideally I would drop a CD in the tray, place the computer mic in front of the speaker and press play / record and presto...graphs. Does this exist?

I've seen and used some of the freeware and read about the pricey purchased software stuff, but, what's in between and what do you guys use?

Thanks.

 

[artquake]

So then welcome ...

Look here for more Infos : I use Arta !

You'll need also a good soundcard and if you do speaker measurements a adequate microphone too.

There are many threads in here, feel yourself forced to search.

Regards
artQuake

 

[SY]

Very simple and free: Liberty Instruments' SynRTA. It even has the files to burn to your CD.

Arta is excellent, but may be more than you need for getting started. I've been using SoundEasy which is very powerful and has the most opaque user interface imaginable.

 

[D_Dubya]

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I'll try a few of the other freeware versions first to see what they have to offer. I'm just hesistant to jump right into the pricey commercial software.

I should have been more direct in my question and asked for tools with an intuitive user interface...Speaker Workshop, ugh!

 

[Conrad Hoffman]

There's almost nothing I can't do with the free Visual Analyzer, including generate test tones and noise, while simultaneously measuring the response with the real time spectrum analyzer. I'm surprised more people don't take advantage of this thing.

 

[artquake]

Here's also another working FREE one ... Soundcard Oscilloscope

@Conrad
Do you have a link of the mentioned free "Visual Analyzer" ?

 

[Conrad Hoffman]

Inability to Google isn't a good sign, but here you go- Visual Analyzer

 

[gmilitano]

As mentioned above ARTA/Limp is very good. I have used it, but I need a better soundcard as mine has a poor SNR and high noise floor. If you just need impedance and T/S the Dayton Audio Woofer Tester 3 is very easy to use.

 

[artquake]

Inability to Google isn't a good sign, but here you go- Visual Analyzer

Hello conrad,
For clarification; This isn't Inability The term " Visual Analyzer" is nevertheless somewhat of a poor indication for a clear search to the point. I feel forced to say that what I find with google or other search engines must not mean that i'll find that what YOU possibly ment ... In fact in this case searching with google gives the result on the first hit. But that's not the usual thing, when a LINK isn't posted. Not inability but laziness isn't a good sign. Posting a Link is allways a good sign .

Peace and thank you for the link ... it looks really worth to give that software a try ...

artQuake

 

[Leglandu]

Presto ?

Hi D_Dubya,

Did you try Roomeqwizard already ?
http://www.hometheatershack.com/roomeq/
You will have to register but it is freeware.

I found it to be very user friendly (after some setting, of course)
Just play "Start Mesuring" and, presto, 2 seconds later you get your curve... with some smoothing is you need... life is good

 

[Conrad Hoffman]

Sorry Art, just grumpy that day. I respond to a fair number of posts on many topics in many forums, and don't always have time to track down a link.

 

[artquake]

Conrad, that wasn't my day either ...

BTW i installed Visual Analyser 10.0.5 and it's very bulky. A nice PC-based toy of an oscilloscope. I never worked with oscilloscopes so far.

But it's very hungry on cpu power ... my Intel C2D T7700 goes near 80 % while capturing the spectrum. And somethimes it affects the signal from soundcard when cpu power is so high. Is this normal ?

 

[Conrad Hoffman]

I run about 35% on a "few year old" Athlon64 system (Gateway media PC running XP). Now, I do use an external Emu0202 sound box, so the PC doesn't have to deal with the internal sound system. In the setup for Visual Analyzer there are some buffer options. I thought they only affected sound output, as I had some interruptions and glitches until I adjusted the amount of buffering, but it might be worth playing with those. Naturally faster sample rates can use more processor power. I'm usually working at 44.1, but I don't have any problem at 96. I can't take full advantage of the Emu's 192k rate, and it's necessary to try the various sample rates to see what works best; I can crash the program if I choose an unfortunate combination of sample rate and FFT samples. I don't know if that's the program or something peculiar to my PC or sound system, but it hasn't been any big handicap in my measurements.