Hi.
I've been building speakers for some time, and finally decided to fully invest in equipment, to take my designs to a higher level.
Therefore i bought an Umik-1 and a dats v3.
I have one problem however:
I want to measure FR on a new build that i have. I want to build the crossover design around these measurements. However i cant seem to figure out how to safely take a measurement. I was of the understanding, that the dats v3 could make a frequency sweep, and that the umik-1 would record this. I know the dats can do lots of other things as impedance curve etc, so by no means unnecessary.
But in reality. How do i safely measure the response of my drivers in the build, without burning it down? I guess i could volume down an amplifier and test, however i would much rather test in a more controlled enviroment.
Also when measuring the tweeter and woofer, should they measured together or each on their own? As far as i am aware, i will measure it one meter out from the tweeters level.
Thank you very much.
I've been building speakers for some time, and finally decided to fully invest in equipment, to take my designs to a higher level.
Therefore i bought an Umik-1 and a dats v3.
I have one problem however:
I want to measure FR on a new build that i have. I want to build the crossover design around these measurements. However i cant seem to figure out how to safely take a measurement. I was of the understanding, that the dats v3 could make a frequency sweep, and that the umik-1 would record this. I know the dats can do lots of other things as impedance curve etc, so by no means unnecessary.
But in reality. How do i safely measure the response of my drivers in the build, without burning it down? I guess i could volume down an amplifier and test, however i would much rather test in a more controlled enviroment.
Also when measuring the tweeter and woofer, should they measured together or each on their own? As far as i am aware, i will measure it one meter out from the tweeters level.
Thank you very much.
Use rew and umic to measure fr response. REW is free, so is HolmImpulse. Simpler and easier to used. You do not need dats for fr response.
Dats provides impedance and phase. Not fr response.
Umic and dats do not work together.
Dats provides impedance and phase. Not fr response.
Umic and dats do not work together.
Hi, yes i am aware. I think we misunderstood eachother. What i meant, was that i need a "tone generator" for creating something that the umik-1 can measure. I have REW and that works fine, but i want something that i can feed into the driver without burning it off.
To make any tone: Open REW, select "Generator"
To make a measurement, select "measurement" - within the measurement submenus you can set levels
If you are "burning" anything "off", you are doing something wrong.
The UMIK is used (most commonly) with REW to make acoustic measurements of drivers and or speaker systems.
DATS is (mostly) for measuring driver and or speaker system impedance. You do not use DATS for taking acoustic frequency response measurements of anything.
You need the combination of both to measure driver in-box acoustic responses and electrical impedances seperately, and combine them both in loudspeaker design software such as VituixCAD to design a complete speaker system.
To make a measurement, select "measurement" - within the measurement submenus you can set levels
If you are "burning" anything "off", you are doing something wrong.
The UMIK is used (most commonly) with REW to make acoustic measurements of drivers and or speaker systems.
DATS is (mostly) for measuring driver and or speaker system impedance. You do not use DATS for taking acoustic frequency response measurements of anything.
You need the combination of both to measure driver in-box acoustic responses and electrical impedances seperately, and combine them both in loudspeaker design software such as VituixCAD to design a complete speaker system.
Last edited:
Both rew and holmimpulse generate sweep. Fr sweep generated outside independently of measuring is useless. You do not understand what i am saying. Download any of those free software, they contain all you need.
I still feel like we are misunderstanding eachother. I am well aware that REW can generate a FR. That is not what im saying. But i cant just make the sweep on my laptop, when there is nothing connected to my driver.
What i need, is advice to how i hookup my driver to something, without burning the driver off when doing the sweep. Do i just have to connect my drivers directly to my amp and hope for the best? Im afraid of any "burp" ripping my tweeter etc.
What i need, is advice to how i hookup my driver to something, without burning the driver off when doing the sweep. Do i just have to connect my drivers directly to my amp and hope for the best? Im afraid of any "burp" ripping my tweeter etc.
Take the headphone output from your pc or laptop, connect to good clean amp (use no eq), connect speaker output from amp to your speaker. You have volume under control.
First disable system sounds on the laptop, then make sure no programs launch on startup in task manager that might open something up and start making noise.
I just connect my laptop to a topping E30 DAC with volume fixed at -12dB. Then connect that straight to amplifier and to driver. Leave windows system sound at 100%, and use REW to control the output (volume) level as dBFS - either in the generator window or the measurement window.
There is a button on the measurement window that says "check levels" which will send a pink noise to the driver so you can get a feel for what the levels are. Perhaps start with levels set to -24dBFS and work from there.
I just connect my laptop to a topping E30 DAC with volume fixed at -12dB. Then connect that straight to amplifier and to driver. Leave windows system sound at 100%, and use REW to control the output (volume) level as dBFS - either in the generator window or the measurement window.
There is a button on the measurement window that says "check levels" which will send a pink noise to the driver so you can get a feel for what the levels are. Perhaps start with levels set to -24dBFS and work from there.
In the measurement window, if measuring a tweeter, you set the sweep frequencies. Set start to 500hz and end 24000hz (or however high your systems internal or external dac will let it go - set by the in the windows sound control menu see below, I have showing 20,000 but I could take this up 24000 as the USB DAC is set to 48kHZ in the sound menu)
Playing the "check levels" button will now only play pink noise from 500hz and up to the high limit.
Playing the "check levels" button will now only play pink noise from 500hz and up to the high limit.
Thanks. That was just the information that i needed. Would bluetooth instead of aux cable be acceptable or do i need to go out and by one? Thanks.
Havent tried bluetooth so I'm not sure. You trying to bluetooth from the laptop to an integrated amplifier? It should work, but I suspect it will a. add latency and b. add distortion.
Strongly recommend using all cabled set up.
Strongly recommend using all cabled set up.
I agree.
UMIK plugs into the PC with a USB cable.
Use the headphone jack on the PC to provide an analog signal to the amp. A common way to do this is to use a cable with a 3.5 mm headphone connector on one end, and RCA plugs on the other end.
PC's can alter the signal that goes to the headphone jack, adding EQ and other effects. My laptop always wants to use some bass EQ and some "spatial enhancements". Be sure that all of this nonsense is turned off. If possible, use ASIO drivers.
edit - I just saw the recent postings of @mainframe99 ... he is showing you the way...
j.
Are you using a Dell laptop / computer? It comes with Waves MaxxAudio Pro audio enhancement software. Run "maxx" from the start menu to launch it and check eveything is off in the playback and dimensions tab
@hifijim and Dave have a very good point - bloatware (free applications that come with new PCs or hardware drivers) can add significant EQ to audio outputs, especially on laptops. Make sure this is not happening by selecting "disable audio enhancements" on the output you are using in the windows audio devices list properties.
Pictured here is an example - Audio output from my AMD integrated graphics feeding audio via HDMI to my 27in junk work monitor
(Enhancements were added by default, which I have disabled for this picture, because somewhere along the line the OS or AMD audio driver assumes its a monitor with **** speakers and likely incorporate a bass reduction or mid boost to minimise distortion when using the monitor for audio)
Pictured here is an example - Audio output from my AMD integrated graphics feeding audio via HDMI to my 27in junk work monitor
(Enhancements were added by default, which I have disabled for this picture, because somewhere along the line the OS or AMD audio driver assumes its a monitor with **** speakers and likely incorporate a bass reduction or mid boost to minimise distortion when using the monitor for audio)
Alternative: if your system has the ability to play files from a USB stick, ethernet, music server, or you can simply burn off a CD, womble over here:
https://www.daytonaudio.com/product/1052/omnimic-v2-precision-measurement-system
...and near the bottom of the page, download the audio test tracks zip file. This is the CD files supplied with Omnimic, so just unzip the folder & copy to the desired playback location or burn to a disc & play one channel with the appropriate short sine-sweep file. Job-jibbed, no need to worry about your laptop settings, EQ or whatever.
https://www.daytonaudio.com/product/1052/omnimic-v2-precision-measurement-system
...and near the bottom of the page, download the audio test tracks zip file. This is the CD files supplied with Omnimic, so just unzip the folder & copy to the desired playback location or burn to a disc & play one channel with the appropriate short sine-sweep file. Job-jibbed, no need to worry about your laptop settings, EQ or whatever.
