Audiotester + M-audio - info + question

[pmillett]

I've been using Audiotester and an M-audio audiophile 192 for a while now to do FFT analysis. I've had frequent crashes and some strange operation, especialy WRT setting different sample rates and bit depths. At present 192kHz 24-bit input seems to work fine, but I cannot get 24-bit output to work...

The FFT function seems pretty crash-free, and luckily that is what I use the most.

In an attempt to make the system more stable I recently moved the card and SW from my main office PC into a dedicated lab PC (a refurb IBM Thinkcentre that I got for ~$300). Unfortunately the software still has the same tendencies to crash, especially if you do sweep measurements. FR works most time, but THD vs. level usually crashes.

But here's the good news: The noise floor is terrific. See attached. This is close to AP territory...

So the question: Has anybody figured out why Audiotester crashes? Or am I the only one with this problem?

TIA
Pete

[JohnAtwood]

I've had similar issues with Audiotester. I also find the user interface to be quirky and buggy, so have backed off of using it. I don't think your problem is the sound card, since I get the same bugs on different cards.

I recently bought SoundEasy by Bodzio, but haven't really gotten into it yet. It also has a difficult user interface, but seems much less buggy than Audiotester.

[Cappy]

Well, that is disappointing. I was about to start using AudioTester.

Pete - have you tried the ASIO drivers? I remember reading somewhere that they could help in some situations. I think you may need to ask the developer for the ASIO drivers and that they aren't in the software package, but I'm not sure about that.

Regarding SoundEasy -- if the user interface of the software is as bad as the user interface of the web site selling the product, we are in trouble.

[pmillett]

Originally posted by Cappy
Pete - have you tried the ASIO drivers?

Yes. They don't seem to work well at all, at least at 24/192. The captured waveform has discontinuities (steps) in it. I guess this could be a system performance issue as well...

Here is the FFT capture of the M-audio output @ 16 bits, 192kHz (blue) vs. my HP 8903A (red). Still not bad...

Pete

[Yvesm]

Hi,

Just to tell that there is a more recent version.

Can't tell if it's worst or better

Cheers, Yves.

[pmillett]

Originally posted by JohnAtwood
I recently bought SoundEasy by Bodzio, but haven't really gotten into it yet. It also has a difficult user interface, but seems much less buggy than Audiotester.

I wouln'd be adverse to paying a bit more money (probably no more than a few hundred $$, though) for a better program... but it seems virtually all of them are designed for loudspeaker measurements. I don't really care about waterfall plots or T-S parameters...

As far as I can tell, most of the programs don't have capabilities like sweeps of amplitude vs. THD, or freq vs. THD. Audiotester has them, but crashes...

If anybody has any suggestions for programs that can do these types of measurements, please do tell...

Pete

[Cappy]

Regarding:

I guess this could be a system performance issue as well...

What is the speed of your PC? How much memory does it have?

[pmillett]

Originally posted by Yvesm
Hi,

Just to tell that there is a more recent version.

Can't tell if it's worst or better

Cheers, Yves.

Hi Yves -

This is a different program than Audiotester (www.audiotester.de).

I just downloaded it to try - it seems to work quite well, but it doesn't seem to support 24 bit /192kHz operation.

Pete

[pmillett]

Originally posted by Cappy
What is the speed of your PC? How much memory does it have?

It's a 2.8GHz P4, 512MB memory, and XP SP2.

Would more DRAM have a chance of helping the ASIO driver work better?

I did try different settings for the latency buffer in the M-Audio control panel. More buffer did look like it improved things, but not good enough.

Pete

[Cappy]

Originally posted by pmillett

Would more DRAM have a chance of helping the ASIO driver work better?
Pete

It might. Or it might help the overall program. 512 megs isn't all that much. On the other hand, the program doesn't look like a memory hog from my experience so far.

You could ask the software developer, he will know.