Experience with Galaxy Audio CheckMate SPL Meters?

[cfitz]

Has anyone had any experience with Galaxy Audio's CheckMate line of SPL meters?

http://www.galaxyaudio.com/galaxy/Pr...html#Checkmate

I've searched, to the best of my ability, through these forums and others. I found some information about SPL measuring equipment from Quest, Radio Shack, LinearX and others, but I couldn't find anything about the Galaxy Audio units.

I was interested in the Galaxy Audio units because they are relatively low cost and have higher sensitivity than the readily available and similarly low cost Radio Shack unit. One application I had in mind was measurement of the acoustic noise generated by computer components with the aim of building a quiet home theater PC. I see that many posters here recommend putting such PCs in an adjoining room and running cables through the wall, but if I did that my equipment would be in my neighbor's house.

I would also like to use it for general characterization of my room and other things like finding a car with the quietest interior.

I hope I have placed this in a suitable sub-forum. I've seen other questions about SPL meters here and figured measuring SPL goes hand in hand with building speakers. If I have erred, would the moderators please move this to a more appropriate forum?

cfitz

[Ron E]

SPL meters are great for measuring noise, that is what they are designed for. A sensitivity of 40dB is pretty good for $50. My PC registers 60dBC with a rat shack meter at a few inches from the front of the case and a fair amount more near the PS fan.

I live in an urban apartment with a busy street and about the only time I could reach 40dB is at midnight on a freezing cold holiday evening when nobody is out and about and my refrigerator is unplugged . Typically background noise in my apartment is in the 50's dBC.

Don't buy an SPL meter for frequency response tests. Measurement of anything but noise is the realm of a gated measurement system. If you were to ever measure a speaker at spot frequencies with an SPL meter and try to make use of the output, you would find that it is a real pain in the behind. You might do it a couple times and then decide building jigs and using Speaker workshop is much better for measuring frequency response.

You could aways build a box for the PC to sit in that is insulated and has an indirect path for the sound to travel. Add a slow moving fan inside to keep the air moving from inlet to outlet of the box and you could have a very quiet and inconspicuous PC.

[cfitz]

Thanks for the advice, Ron.

By the way, I hope that all the good points about living in a city make up for the noise you have to put up with. But do try to leave the refrigerator plugged in... it helps avoid food poisoning.

cfitz