AverLAB Audio Analyser

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The new Avermetrics AverLAB Audio Analyser looks pretty interesting, especially at the $3000 pricing, it have the analog performance I'm looking for, and the digital audio I/O I need.... And I like that it's using ethernet instead of USB for the computer interface.

Do anybody know about the company or it's product ?
Anybody actually tried the AverLAB and can tell about it ?

Avermetrics | AverLAB
 
Soren, sorry for the delayed response, I am at Rocky Mountain AudioFest this weekend hanging with the likes of Bob Cordell and others.

I joined Avermetrics last year after nearly 13 years with Audio Precision. All of us at Avermetrics have a background in professional audio having worked at such companies as Avid, M-Audio, Aphex, Manley Labs and PreSonus among others. We are really just a group of engineers that believe existing solutions are way more complex and expensive than they need to be.

Our first product was the AverLine system. This is a customizable rack mount system that can scale up to 500 channels. It is targeted for high-speed production testing (including bed of nails fixtures) and does not have GUI. It is controlled via XML commands instead. It is mostly used by CMs in China.

AverLAB is meant for the bench. It can also be scaled for production test fixtures (but only to ~200 channels). We put in some features that really make it "bench friendly." For instance, it has no fan; you can listen to your DUT instead of your test equipment. It has no USB tether so you can move your laptop around from the bench to the desk and still run tests. And most addictively, it has assignable front panel controls so you can adjust things like amplitudes and frequencies with the same convenience of an old-school analog signal generator. We are paying attention to the little things like that because we want AverLAB to be a product that people look forward to using.

Right now AverLAB is in beta test at a handful of sites in our local area. We expect to release in the next few weeks. The hardware is complete but we have a few software features that need additional tweaking. We also plan to be doing significant software updates on a fairly frequent schedule. The flexible architecture lends itself nicely to a rapidly expanding feature set.

Soren, I am pretty sure we have communicated directly but I am just as happy to answer questions here. BTW, we are starting to put sections of the Quick Start Guide on our website.
 
Dear Sawdust. I am quite impressed by the specified THD+N residual of your Analyzer. Is this a reliable spec.? Especially the low noise level makes me a little bit suspicious.

The maximum input voltage range is definitely to small for anyone testing power amplifiers. What are your future plans in this regard? Will you offer external attenuators or something alike?
 
We should get a more complete set of specifications published in the next few weeks. We are feeling pretty good about the numbers right now. Some further improvements may be possible but we are not committing to any.

Adding provisions for use of external attenuators is definitely on the short list of future features.
 
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Soren, sorry for the delayed response, I am at Rocky Mountain AudioFest this weekend hanging with the likes of Bob Cordell and others.

....

Right now AverLAB is in beta test at a handful of sites in our local area. We expect to release in the next few weeks. The hardware is complete but we have a few software features that need additional tweaking. We also plan to be doing significant software updates on a fairly frequent schedule. The flexible architecture lends itself nicely to a rapidly expanding feature set.

Soren, I am pretty sure we have communicated directly but I am just as happy to answer questions here. BTW, we are starting to put sections of the Quick Start Guide on our website.

Yes, I believe we have exchanged a couple of emails....

The hardware looks pretty good, but it's the software I'm more worried about, hardware is relatively easy to do, while a large piece of software is not that easy, I have tried most of the available PC based software with a number of USB audio interfaces, and none is great although some combinations are usable.... The advantage you have with the software is that it only need to work with your hardware.

I would love to see a complete manual, and even better, love if you would make a demo version available of your software, just like AP and Prism do.

It would also be great with an expected timeline for the features you don't have at launch but are planning, like ASIO Audio device support (needed for testing USB only DAC's) and I2S digital I/O support.

Then I would definite purchase one, the pricing beast the big ones, and the price/performance/features beats all the other ones.
 
The software will be posted when it is released. It won't have a "live" demo mode like AP but it will contain a project with data that you can manipulate. Our software focus has been on software stability and the flexibility of the underlying architecture.

As I'm sure you know, software is never complete. We have actually turned off some capabilities in the first release because we didn't have time to finish the UI for them (e.g. the I2S interface). I am pretty excited about our roadmap. After all, it includes solutions for most of the pet peeves I have had with competitive products. Of course, development priorities could change a little once we start getting feedback from initial customers.
 
Yes it is fair to keep it a secret.
Yet it takes a lot more than just the chip to achieve the performance level your specification suggests. Congrats for realizing those.

Price point is very impressive for professional users, yet mostly out of reach for individual DIYers. Which again is understandable, there is enormous amount of work involved and skilled people need to be paid well to enjoy a decent living in California.

Will follow the company and its products. Good luck.
 
Price point is very impressive for professional users, yet mostly out of reach for individual DIYers. Which again is understandable, there is enormous amount of work involved and skilled people need to be paid well to enjoy a decent living in California.

OK, this I can solve. We suggest a move to the most economical place to live in the USA (not sure where that is without some research) and then we can hope for a DIY version for a reduced cost!
 
Price point is very impressive for professional users, yet mostly out of reach for individual DIYers.
I think you are mostly correct but I learned that there are lots of exceptions. I used to sell a fair number of brand new analyzers to DIYers while at AP and at the same time dealt with profitable, well-known companies couldn't justify replacing old test gear that couldn't even test the feature sets of their new products.

I am a DIY guy too and I know that I am often more motivated about the sense of accomplishment in making something myself rather than cost or time savings. I have built many things that would have been much cheaper and quicker to just purchase (and sometimes of higher quality :eek:). Maybe there is a market for a "Heathkit" version of AverLAB.
 
OK, this I can solve. We suggest a move to the most economical place to live in the USA (not sure where that is without some research) and then we can hope for a DIY version for a reduced cost!
I hear there is a fire sale on real estate in CA right now...

Too soon?

Actually these fires are no joke. I used to work for HP/Agilent (now Keysight). The fires in Santa Rosa have destroyed the area around Keysight's HQ. I traveled there regularly for 11 years and the two hotels I would stay at have been destroyed. I'm sure many of my former colleagues lived in the surrounding neighborhoods and are homeless today.
 
Hi All!

Thanks for the interest and questions about AverLAB. I'm Paul Messick, and I take all the blame for things Avermetrics. Jonathan will take all the credit for anything good, I'm sure.

I started this back in the Dark Ages of 2011 with the idea that there had to be a better way to do testing--not just audio testing, but testing of all kinds of electronics. It shouldn't cost $10's of thousands of dollars and be complicated and slow to use. I think we've made a bit of headway on this idea, but like life it's a work in progress.

We're not terribly secretive around here. I don't see any upside to that, unless the reality is you don't know what you're doing. In that case, everything must be secret!

So, regarding the ADC's and DAC's we use: when we started all this I did a survey of everything that's out there that might be suitable. Strictly from a measurement perspective, the best ADC we've found is the AKM AK5394A. Similarly, on the DAC side we selected the TI/BB PCM1794A.

We regularly get better than -112dBc THD+N (at +26dBu) on the ADC, with typical numbers in the -114dBc range. We haven't published the final specs--one of our engineers is currently measuring a whole stack of AverLAB's so we get good, sustainable numbers. But this gives you an idea of what we're seeing.

DAC's are always more difficult as far as THD+N goes. We are seeing typical numbers in the -110dBc range (at +26dBu), with worst case somewhat higher due to range variation, etc. In this regard we're not that much different than the $10K analyzers that are out there.

[Side note: these may or may not be the best parts if you're looking for a particular sound. The best specs and the best sound are sometimes not as closely related as we might like.]

As for noise levels, you have two things to look at. First is noise as you would measure with autoranging. This would apply for measurements such as SNR, crosstalk, and so on. In this case, we are able to do better than 145dB SNR because we have a well-designed autoranging front end. The other way to look at noise is in a single range. Here, the noise floor is primarily that of the DAC or ADC by itself. Here we see input noise floor on the order of -120+ dB, and DAC output noise floor on the order of -126 dB. These sort of numbers apply for single-range measurements such as THD+N, DR, and the generator output. Again, by careful design we're able to meet or exceed the datasheet specs in most areas.

Which reminds me, when I started Avermetrics, I thought "I'll start with audio, that'll be EASY!" After all, I've been designing pro-audio gear since the 80's, and we did a lot of high-performance stuff at M-Audio and Digidesign. Hahahahahah, yeah. It took a year and a half (of continuous work) to get the first products (our AverLine production system) to meet the sort of specs we needed. I think I got to Rev F on most of the analog boards. My hair also turned grey during that time. Related?

As all of you know, good audio is damn hard. It's my hope that having some good tools will help make it a little easier for you. But you'll be the judge of whether AverLAB fills that bill.

I'm glad to answer any questions--or at least make up answers that sound convincing--about this, or any other engineering related topics. I've done a couple of things in the last 40 years or so; maybe I can pass a little on, and certainly I can learn from all of you.

Paul
 
A test for THD without noise is easy for us to add, as is one that gives the amplitude of each of the harmonics. Jonathan and I have talked about this test in the past; I'll make sure it's in a near-term release of the software.

Regarding higher levels, this is largely a constraint of cost, with a lesser impact to physical size. To give you an idea of what's involved, we use very high reliability reed relays (with rated life of 10^9 cycles). Up to a certain voltage level one could add relay-driven attenuators, but eventually you hit the rated max voltage of the relay and have to start using other solutions. These tend to be much larger, MUCH more expensive, and much less reliable. And we haven't even got them into the schematic yet!

Every product contains a matrix of tradeoffs, and this was one of the early ones we had to accept in order to have a product that every engineer might be able to afford.

The solution we have is that you can build a small attenuator for the input(s), calibrate that attenuator using AverLAB, and let it automatically correct for the reduced level. This feature is slated for an early release (I think the first version will only allow you to enter an attenuator offset as compensation.)
 
Hi Paul,

Is it possible to synchronize the internal clock to an external word clock or DARS?

How have you solved the clock generation and distribution to the modules without adding too much jitter for the excellent THD+N values you get?

Are there good PLL chips on the market which can be used?

Thanks,
Udo
 
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