Speaker workshop ?

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A_Reef_Scene said:
What type of testing equiptment is everone using with this program?
I have this program for 6 months. Also i have dealt enough with this. First of all, I want to say you that it is a very important application and deserve the labour to deal with this. Without fail it needs roughly one week in order to you familiarize with her if you of have good experience in measurement tools that are based on P.C. In order to occupy with her i was based on the tutorial of CLAUDIO NEGRO. From equipment you need the following:
1) A good sound card in your computer. I use a Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum of cost 170€. You can of course use also the on board sound card of your P.C. but the difference in quality – that is essential in measurements – is obvious.
2) A microphone of measurements. I use a BEHRINGER ECM8000 of cost 65€. There is also and a capsule of Panasonic who can work directly in the mic input of sound card and is less expensive but need some extra work to modify it.
3) A preamplifier for the microphone BEHRINGER because it is electret condenser type and needs supply at least 15 Volts; this is not offered from any sound card in his mic input. You can buy one cheap mini mixing desk as a BEHRINGER with Phantom Power Supply in the microphone input of cost 65€. Thus you connect the microphone in the mixing desk, and the output of this in the line input of sound card. I have make a DIY single channel preamplifier for microphone and it cost to me 50€ but his quality is comparable only with corresponding preamplifiers on the market of cost 300€, as all these cheap mixing desks in the market, they have mid to bad sound quality and contain useless things – as equalizers - but this is not very essential. However if you want clean measurements you can not to avoid the single channel mic preamplifier.
4) One jig distribution box. As you will have seen in the forum of Audua speaker workshop, exist mainly two proposals for jig. The one is the box of Eric Wallin’s jig and the second are various cables with plugs and splitters of Claudio Negro. And the two have so much their positive what negative points. I combined the two and led in a new jig distribution box of my own design. This cost to me 25€.
I quote photos of all equipments that i use. If you want to go in expenses to get those, contact with me in order to send you analytic information about the preamplifier and the jig distribution box; for how you construct those.
The total cost of my own equipment is 140€ + 170 € the sound card X - Fi Platinum, thus total 310 €. If you use simpler solutions without the addition of a sound card in your P.C. the cost will reach the 50€ (a capsule of Panasonic and a jig as that of Claudio Negro, as they do not need preamplifiers). The choice is yours.
Kind regards
Fotios Anagnostou
In the photo below you can see my own made mic preamplifier
 

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Speaker workshop: installed it, read the non official word file, made a complete jig, have mono amps to power units, soldered cables, made a phantome ps together with 2 channel microphone pre amp, made 2 on a long rod standing electret microphones. Did the reverse mod of the electret microphone found on www to reduce distorsion. Everything ready....and never used it....no time :xeye:
 
I wouldn't buy an x-fi, or any other creative card for that matter, they are fine if you set them to 48khz, but using them with other applications they generally resample 44.1khz (ie cd audio) up, and poorly introducing distortion, often they downsample as well. There are a few USB/Firewire interfaces about these days that have 1-2 mic inputs with phantom power built right into the sound card, i think just for measurements these are worth a look (nice and simple).
 
noodle_snacks said:
I wouldn't buy an x-fi, or any other creative card for that matter, they are fine if you set them to 48khz, but using them with other applications they generally resample 44.1khz (ie cd audio) up, and poorly introducing distortion, often they downsample as well. There are a few USB/Firewire interfaces about these days that have 1-2 mic inputs with phantom power built right into the sound card, i think just for measurements these are worth a look (nice and simple).
All of these that you report looks very pretty, but the cost for these usb/firewire interfaces??? I know for which interfaces you are speaking.
 
Thanks, Fotios. I have been quite overwhelmed with work these past few months. If I ever get some more time to update, I would love to include it in an updated Unofficial Speaker Workshop Manual, or at the very least, perhaps it might get posted on the SW website, itself, along with the other jigs (Claudio's and the Wallen Jig) that are in common use.

Jay
 
For sound card, it is hard to beat a Chaintec AV710. Cheap and very good specs/sound.

I use a Behringer UB-802 and ECM-8000 combo. I made a modified wallin jig with no microphone inputs or voltage divider and no protecting diodes. I would not recommend omitting the diodes because I accidentally fried the inputs of my laptop while setting levels because the output was considerably more powerful than I thought. Now all I can do is listen with my laptop.... ;(

I will probably redo my jig so I can have everything hooked up at once, but at the time I was trying to cheap out....

Make sure you look for the unofficial manual, there are a lot of tips and techniques in there. It walks you through setup and measurements and crossover design.
 
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