VU Meters

[Weston]

I am planing on building a tubelabs simple se, and think it would be cool to incorporate a couple vu meters. I cant seem to find out how they are hooked up. Is it as simple as rectifying the input or output signal and feeding it into the meter? maybe adjusting it abit? or is it really complicated?

[HollowState]

A real VU meter, as used on professional sound equipment, has a movement built to ballistic specifictions. It is intended to be used across a terminated 600 ohm source with a 3600 ohm series resistor. The rectifier is built in.

For all the other types on home or semi pro equipment, it's a 1 mA (or less) movement that may or may not have any special ballistics with a "suitable" series resistor. If your meter has no internal rectifier, build a small bridge with fast recovery diodes (to get the response) and connect it across the speaker output with a series resistor to make it read as needed. But remember it's just for looks since the varying speaker impedance will affect calibration.

[Richard Ellis]

Weston:
Have you considered tube VU indicaters??
Quite possibly THE most spectacular looking meters on the planet...yes you will have to come up with some high voltage to run it as it is another tube....but the support circuitry is simple....do a search you will be astounded!
__________________________________Rick.........

[HollowState]

Originally posted by Richard Ellis
Weston:
Have you considered tube VU indicaters??

Good idea. Another option would be an LED bar graph assembly. I've seen some laid out in an arch to resemble an analog meter with both green and red LEDs.

[Variac]

There is a thread about this already but I'm not sure if boards were ever made..

Try searching..

[Weston]

I did search... and I did find plenty of led circuits, but I want analog meters. The tube one is very cool, but isnt quite the look im going for. I think I'm going to build the one HollowState suggested. Thanks for all the info.

[quadtech]

Something like this should be interesting -

http://m.bareille.free.fr/vu-in13/vumeter_in13.htm

[Variac]

I mentioned searching because I can't find it in my references, not as a critisism. BUT the thread I'm referring to IS for an analog meter. I think it was jackinNJ that was trying to develop it..

[Variac]

OK here it is:

GB -- "VU Meter Amplifier" PCB

[Tubes4e4]

Have you considered tube VU indicaters??

Thank you for showing my circuit without notice

It should be noted that the EM71 tube used there - different to many other indicator tubes - has a somewhat special degressive characteristic that nicely matches the voltage/power function.

Regards,

Tom Schlangen