Speaker Workshop vs. other software WRT measurements

[timsch75]

I've used SW successfully (I suppose) in the past and am looking to do some more speaker building. I look into opinions on what software to use and see very mixed responses concerning SW. I am wondering what problems people find with SW when compared with others such as Soundeasy and LspCad. I hear complaints about the user-friendliness of SW, but nothing about its accuracy. If there are issues with accuracy, I'd definitely like to know. How many people have compared the TS parameter measurements taken with SW to those compared with other programs?

I have the first set of speakers I built (2-way sealed, vifa p17wj0008 and d35....) which are now passively xo'd, but will be going digital active xo soon. I never did test the speakers once built due to living in an apartment, so I don't know how well SW would have done those measurements. I will want to do a more thorough job once I finish this next phase, and I'd like to be able to fully trust the software I'm using.

thanks
Tim

[MarkMcK]

Tim,

The version of SW I tested is high freqency limited to 18 kHz. Other than that, there is no problem with accuracy. It is as accurate as any other MLS based analyzer.

The real accuracy limitation is the soundcard you use to digitize the signal and the microphone you use for acoustic pick-up. The microphone is much more likely to be a problem than the sound card.

All the analyzers are hard to figure out for the novice. With a little time, effort, and patience you can get the "hang" of any of them and using the analyzer will be the easiest part of testing.

Best,

Mark

[timsch75]

I bought a SBlive5.1 soundcard and made a panasonic applet mic specifically for the project, so those components should be good. I'm really curious as to why people say that SW is great for "free" which implies that you get what you pay for. I'd like to know what it is about Soundeasy and/or LspCAD that some think those are worth the money. Is it the jig that needs to be made for SW to work right that puts them off or other things? Or is it that the others just have more features.

[Ron E]

Speaker Workshop is fine WRT Frequency Response measurement and T/S measurements go. The crossover simulator also appears to work fine. Its main problem lies in documentation and ease of use. Also the vast array of equipment people try to use to make measurements with it.

There are problems with some functions like when you try to remove excess phase from a FR measurement. Best is to measure the tweeter and woofer on the same baffle at the same distance.

The main problem is confidence in the results due to inexperience and the "freeware factor". The only way to be confident in it is to measure and simulate the individual drivers and crossover, and then measure the completed product. If they match, you are in business.