Woofer tester #2 for testing fullrange drivers?

natural sound · 05:07 PM

I wanted to know about the woofer tester #2 from the org. people who made the woofer tester. The web site is woofertester.com. As anyone used this product?

I know it's $159.99 but, is it really worth it? I know that not all the specs. on a driver can be right. I was looking at this for acouple of reasons. I want the drivers I am using to have the right box for them to work at the highest level they can work. I also wanted the box to be right. So many boxes made for speakers are not right just guessing? Also for The right driver specs. numbers of the driver and aslo the new in the box testing to see if the box is right for your drivers. Now is there a program out there were I can get for free that can do the samething or not? I can also buy and make my own hook up test wires. I guess I am asking is there a home made kit I can buy and make for cheaper money? Also I am not looking at parts express or the one from mcm. Please let me know on any advise you can share of help me out with. Thanks jm

P.s. I will be using it for fostex and other fullrange drivers. jm

Melon Head · 6th August 2012, 05:08 PM

Be very careful how you interpret measured TS parameters

DrBoar · 6th August 2012, 06:06 PM

There are other testers out there like the Parts-Express Dayton Audio DATS Dayton Audio Test System. Most of these measurements can be made with a volt meter and some resistors and clips and a lot of hard work. I got the Parts express one and it measure bass drivers, tweeters and coils and caps fast and so easy. 100 bucks well spent!

To complicate things T/S paramterers are somwhat drive level dependent in a complex manner that has to be determinated for each driver. Heating up the voice coil increase its resistance and then increase the Qes, the elasticity of the suspension might be more or less unlinear with different levels of cone motion. However, this is getting into details. The basic set of T/S will not change dramatically.

There is no "right" box in a religous sense of the word. It is more of a range of sizes with various trade offs. For a given Fostex driver a closed volume box is say
15 Liter
Good: small and very good protection against subsonic overload, very good transients
Bad: No bass at all below 100 Hz

Bass reflex 60 liter
Good: better bass down to 50 Hz
Bad: less good transients, no mechanical protection against subsonic overload

Bass horn 240 liter
Good. way more bass output at tap 50-200 Hz
Bad: less good transients, no mechanical protection against subsonic overload, trouble in upper bass lower midrange due to colorations from horn.

So different box types has very different "right" sizes. And even for a given box type such as a bass reflex, it can be tuned in many ways to fit a specific room placement or other things. It is quite common to not use the classical tunings but have a overdamped tuning were a gentle slope in the bass is offset by room gain.

So if you want to measure your specific drivers to build the "right" boxes you are aiming at elusive shadows.

DBMandrake · 6th August 2012, 06:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by natural sound

Now is there a program out there were I can get for free that can do the samething or not? I can also buy and make my own hook up test wires. I guess I am asking is there a home made kit I can buy and make for cheaper money?

IMHO if you have a PC with a half decent sound card a dedicated hardware based device for measuring T/S parameters of drivers is expensive and obsolete.

There are many software packages, some which are free which include the ability to automatially measure a full set of T/S parameters ready to feed into a box simulator program.

Generally the only hardware needed is a sound card, a series resistor of around 33 to 68 ohms, some wires, and a couple of calibration resistors to calibrate it against an ohm meter.

One such example of software is ARTA, ( http://www.artalabs.hr/ ) whilst the full version is not free the free demo of LIMP (part of the ARTA suite of programs) will quickly and easily measure a drivers T/S parameters for you.

For the money spent buying the dedicated speaker tester you could register the full version of ARTA and have a very powerful measurement package that can measure everything else you could possibly need, including frequency response and room acoustics. (Even so the free demo does most of what most people would need, I made do with the free demo for a long time)

There are other free programs which will measure T/S parameters too. Personally I would go the software route rather than a dedicated hardware tester...

ra7 · 6th August 2012, 07:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DBMandrake

IMHO if you have a PC with a half decent sound card a dedicated hardware based device for measuring T/S parameters of drivers is expensive and obsolete.

There are many software packages, some which are free which include the ability to automatially measure a full set of T/S parameters ready to feed into a box simulator program.

Generally the only hardware needed is a sound card, a series resistor of around 33 to 68 ohms, some wires, and a couple of calibration resistors to calibrate it against an ohm meter.

One such example of software is ARTA, ( ARTA Home ) whilst the full version is not free the free demo of LIMP (part of the ARTA suite of programs) will quickly and easily measure a drivers T/S parameters for you.

For the money spent buying the dedicated speaker tester you could register the full version of ARTA and have a very powerful measurement package that can measure everything else you could possibly need, including frequency response and room acoustics. (Even so the free demo does most of what most people would need, I made do with the free demo for a long time)

There are other free programs which will measure T/S parameters too. Personally I would go the software route rather than a dedicated hardware tester...

natural sound · 6th August 2012, 07:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DBMandrake

IMHO if you have a PC with a half decent sound card a dedicated hardware based device for measuring T/S parameters of drivers is expensive and obsolete.

There are many software packages, some which are free which include the ability to automatially measure a full set of T/S parameters ready to feed into a box simulator program.

Generally the only hardware needed is a sound card, a series resistor of around 33 to 68 ohms, some wires, and a couple of calibration resistors to calibrate it against an ohm meter.

One such example of software is ARTA, ( ARTA Home ) whilst the full version is not free the free demo of LIMP (part of the ARTA suite of programs) will quickly and easily measure a drivers T/S parameters for you.

For the money spent buying the dedicated speaker tester you could register the full version of ARTA and have a very powerful measurement package that can measure everything else you could possibly need, including frequency response and room acoustics. (Even so the free demo does most of what most people would need, I made do with the free demo for a long time)

There are other free programs which will measure T/S parameters too. Personally I would go the software route rather than a dedicated hardware tester...

So could you give me more info on this program? So I would want to upgrade my sound card to what? With computers I am lost? I guess I could e-mail the guy to see what he thinks? The more the better right

tvrgeek · 6th August 2012, 11:01 PM

Great product. PE has it for $99. Used it for years. Yes, you CAN do it with a sound card, but it makes it so easy. I have SoundEasy, Arta and even a generator and VTVM. I use the WT2 all the time. It is very accurate. More than we need actually. If you are going to measure something once, use free software. I have used mine hundreds of times.

My soapbox: I will tell you to do it with a signal generator ( PC based, free) , multimeter and calculator once. Really understanding what you are measuring helps in the long run. Read Jo De'Appolito's book on measuring loudspeakers.

fastbike1 · 7th August 2012, 07:32 PM

Woofertester 2 is not the PE product. It is a different version from a different mfr and is much more consistent and reliable than PE's WT3. I don't know how "improved" DATS compared. I will agree that Woofer Tester 2 is reliable and consistent. It was worth the money to me. It also does more than merely measure T/S params.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tvrgeek

Great product. PE has it for $99. Used it for years. Yes, you CAN do it with a sound card, but it makes it so easy. I have SoundEasy, Arta and even a generator and VTVM. I use the WT2 all the time. It is very accurate. More than we need actually. If you are going to measure something once, use free software. I have used mine hundreds of times.

My soapbox: I will tell you to do it with a signal generator ( PC based, free) , multimeter and calculator once. Really understanding what you are measuring helps in the long run. Read Jo De'Appolito's book on measuring loudspeakers.

Bob Brines · 7th August 2012, 07:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tvrgeek

My soapbox: I will tell you to do it with a signal generator ( PC based, free) , multimeter and calculator once. Really understanding what you are measuring helps in the long run. Read Jo De'Appolito's book on measuring loudspeakers.

I have the Smith & Larson WooferTester PRO, which is about a cheap as you can get for a professional measurement suite. For those who don't know, S&L does the WT2. The WT3 is an offshore knock-off. (Insert political tirade here.) Don't ask Keith Larson about this unless you are wearing a hard hat and ear muffs.

Yes, you can measure drivers with a PC and a multimeter. The problem arises that a multimeter that is going to be accurate for AC at anything but 60Hz can be as expensive as a decent entry level measurement suite. I cannot vouch for any of the freeware packages. They may very good. I don't know. However, I have heard that you often get what you pay for.

Bob

tuxedocivic · 7th August 2012, 08:17 PM

I fought and fought with REW and Limp to do impendance measurements. Sometimes it would be close, but never perfect. Other times the impendance curve would be the right shape, but over 100ohms off. Other times it was just noise. I dunno. I gave up. Was going to buy a WT2 or WT3, hoping to save up for the original WT2. Then a used WT3 came up for sale here and I bought it. It was like a breath of fresh air. It finally works. I can finally get reliable impendance measurements.

T/S params on the other hand... I still am careful with those.

6th August 2012, 05:03 PM	#1
natural sound diyAudio Member Join Date: Jun 2011	Woofer tester #2 for testing fullrange drivers? I wanted to know about the woofer tester #2 from the org. people who made the woofer tester. The web site is woofertester.com. As anyone used this product? I know it's $159.99 but, is it really worth it? I know that not all the specs. on a driver can be right. I was looking at this for acouple of reasons. I want the drivers I am using to have the right box for them to work at the highest level they can work. I also wanted the box to be right. So many boxes made for speakers are not right just guessing? Also for The right driver specs. numbers of the driver and aslo the new in the box testing to see if the box is right for your drivers. Now is there a program out there were I can get for free that can do the samething or not? I can also buy and make my own hook up test wires. I guess I am asking is there a home made kit I can buy and make for cheaper money? Also I am not looking at parts express or the one from mcm. Please let me know on any advise you can share of help me out with. Thanks jm P.s. I will be using it for fostex and other fullrange drivers. jm Last edited by natural sound; 6th August 2012 at 05:07 PM.

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6th August 2012, 05:08 PM	#2
Melon Head Banned Join Date: Nov 2006	Be very careful how you interpret measured TS parameters

6th August 2012, 06:06 PM	#3
DrBoar diyAudio Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Stockholm	There are other testers out there like the Parts-Express Dayton Audio DATS Dayton Audio Test System. Most of these measurements can be made with a volt meter and some resistors and clips and a lot of hard work. I got the Parts express one and it measure bass drivers, tweeters and coils and caps fast and so easy. 100 bucks well spent! To complicate things T/S paramterers are somwhat drive level dependent in a complex manner that has to be determinated for each driver. Heating up the voice coil increase its resistance and then increase the Qes, the elasticity of the suspension might be more or less unlinear with different levels of cone motion. However, this is getting into details. The basic set of T/S will not change dramatically. There is no "right" box in a religous sense of the word. It is more of a range of sizes with various trade offs. For a given Fostex driver a closed volume box is say 15 Liter Good: small and very good protection against subsonic overload, very good transients Bad: No bass at all below 100 Hz Bass reflex 60 liter Good: better bass down to 50 Hz Bad: less good transients, no mechanical protection against subsonic overload Bass horn 240 liter Good. way more bass output at tap 50-200 Hz Bad: less good transients, no mechanical protection against subsonic overload, trouble in upper bass lower midrange due to colorations from horn. So different box types has very different "right" sizes. And even for a given box type such as a bass reflex, it can be tuned in many ways to fit a specific room placement or other things. It is quite common to not use the classical tunings but have a overdamped tuning were a gentle slope in the bass is offset by room gain. So if you want to measure your specific drivers to build the "right" boxes you are aiming at elusive shadows.

6th August 2012, 11:01 PM	#7
tvrgeek diyAudio Member Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Md	Great product. PE has it for $99. Used it for years. Yes, you CAN do it with a sound card, but it makes it so easy. I have SoundEasy, Arta and even a generator and VTVM. I use the WT2 all the time. It is very accurate. More than we need actually. If you are going to measure something once, use free software. I have used mine hundreds of times. My soapbox: I will tell you to do it with a signal generator ( PC based, free) , multimeter and calculator once. Really understanding what you are measuring helps in the long run. Read Jo De'Appolito's book on measuring loudspeakers.

7th August 2012, 08:17 PM	#10
tuxedocivic diyAudio Member Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Ladysmith, BC	I fought and fought with REW and Limp to do impendance measurements. Sometimes it would be close, but never perfect. Other times the impendance curve would be the right shape, but over 100ohms off. Other times it was just noise. I dunno. I gave up. Was going to buy a WT2 or WT3, hoping to save up for the original WT2. Then a used WT3 came up for sale here and I bought it. It was like a breath of fresh air. It finally works. I can finally get reliable impendance measurements. T/S params on the other hand... I still am careful with those.