What does pink noise sound like?

[HiFiNutNut]

Thanks, Panomaniac. I down loaded it. The non-plug-in version failed in the installation. For the plug-in version, I tried a few times but failed to add it into Windows Media Player through Plug-In.

I accidentally found that Windows Media Player has a built-in EQ but it does not allow precise setting of frequency, dB, Q, etc.

Regards,
Bill

[HiFiNutNut]

I downloaded Winamp last night and played CDs from my laptop computer with Winamp that has a 9 band equalizer, using a Sennheiser top of the range earphone.

It was truly educational hearing the effects of different boosts or notches at different frequencies and know how they sounded like. This is very useful for me as I am designing and tuning my crossover networks without measurement equipments.

I don't think a laptop has line-out so I guess if I want to hook up the laptop output to my preamp, I would need to purchase an external USB soundcard that has line-out. I guess that the laptop would work as a transport only and the D/A conversion would be on the soundcard. Is that right?

The purpose is to play CDs from the laptop through Winamp output to my system / speakers, while adjusting Winamp's equalizer to get the "best" balanced sound, observe the EQ then adjust my speaker crossovers to use the same EQ.

Since an external USB soundcard would cost $70-$130, I am also thinking about buying the Behringer DEQ2496 at $380. The problem is that the DEQ2496 has only balanced output, and I don't have a balanced preamp. I don't think I can use it unless I build a balanced input for my preamp. This complicates the issue. I have an ECM8000 mic already, going with the DEQ2496 I can find out room corrections at low frequencies, which I can't do with Winamp.

Regards,
Bill

[RobWells]

I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to achieve...

However I use a M-Audio transit usb sound card with my laptop. I use trueRTA software to do rta measurements. The only other thing you'd need is a mic pre with phantom power to go with your ecm8000. - I use the Behringer shark mic pre.


I own a deq2496 and would never use it instead of trueRTA - much better resolution / facilities.

Hth ,
Rob.

[HiFiNutNut]

RobWells,

I bought the ECM8000, Behringer mic preamp (with Phantom power) and the M-Audio Transit, but somehow destroyed the M-Audio Transit when trying to set up Speaker Workshop to do acoustic measurements. It was so complicated and I had all sorts of problems. For example, when the soundcard output was connected to the system, it worked fine only when the mic output was not plugged into the soundcard. As soon as I plugged in the soundcard input, the output did not work. And I could not play any signal from the computer and got the signal out to the speakers. Then the soundcard was destroyed for whatever reason. I did not think I had over-driven it.

I tried a number of the cheap soundcards and they were terrible.

I may do it all over again but have not found out which modern soundcard would work. All available soundcard information in the web seems to be outdated. Nowadays, SB Live rules, but most reported they are not good. I had the problem with M-Audio Transit and am afraid of buying it again. Perhaps I got a bad one.

I wish somebody was selling a complete solution (soundcard, cables / jig) as I do not have hours and hours, days and days to try to get it working.

Regards,
Bill