What type of Audio Analyzer do you use to tune a system?

[Eric M.]

I'm looking into an audio analyzer to tune my system in its room and was wondering what everyone here prefers or uses?
I'm trying not to make a bad purchase but there's a lot of stuff out there and a lot of claims.

Thanks,

Eric M.

[martin2395]

Hi Eric,
Are you referring to room acoustic measurements?

If yes - the easiest way to do so is using the MiniDSP UMIK-1 USB microphone combined with the free Room EQ Wizard software.
Measuring room acoustics won't get any easier than this and they even come with a calibration file.

[Eric M.]

Thanks,

I just checked both items out on-line.

I'm assuming you plug your computer into your preamp and it will output signals at a fixed input level which then you can measure with the microphone and plot on a graph allowing you to make adjustments to flatten your response based on your system and room acoustic?
If I've got that correct,
How accurate is the microphone and how do you calibrate it?
How accurate are the signals generated from your computer and your sound card? Is the output consistant? Or, do you use some other source for this (a signal generator or CD)?


Eric M.



Hi Eric,
Are you referring to room acoustic measurements?

If yes - the easiest way to do so is using the MiniDSP UMIK-1 USB microphone combined with the free Room EQ Wizard software.
Measuring room acoustics won't get any easier than this and they even come with a calibration file.

[gsb001]

I run crossovers, so I'm able to use a DBX DriveRackPlus for me. $300 plus $100 for mic.
SB

[grumpy]

I'm assuming you plug your computer into your preamp and it will output signals at a fixed input level which then you can measure with the microphone and plot on a graph allowing you to make adjustments to flatten your response based on your system and room acoustic?

fixed, meaning constant after it is set, yes. Interpreting the resulting plots and converting them to useful action
is a book all by itself (or several). But REW comes with some good info and tutorials.


If I've got that correct,
How accurate is the microphone and how do you calibrate it?

You do not, someone else has and you are provided with the corrections (calibration values) that your stimulus/analysis program (e.g., REW) uses to correct the input signal.


How accurate are the signals generated from your computer and your sound card? Is the output consistant? Or, do you use some other source for this (a signal generator or CD)?


Adequately accurate and consistent, REW (or the like) generates the tones/noise/etc... which is output from your computer soundcard.

you read this, correct?:
http://www.minidsp.com/applications/acoustic-measurements/umik-1-setup-with-rew

[Eric M.]

I had not seen that link. Very informative.
This really seems like the way to go, and for the price, you can't beat it. I've seen a few $900 units that look like they do about the same thing.
Is there any draw back to this program? Any recommended sound cards that are better compatible with this?

Thanks for the feedback.

Eric M.




fixed, meaning constant after it is set, yes. Interpreting the resulting plots and converting them to useful action
is a book all by itself (or several). But REW comes with some good info and tutorials.



You do not, someone else has and you are provided with the corrections (calibration values) that your stimulus/analysis program (e.g., REW) uses to correct the input signal.



Adequately accurate and consistent, REW (or the like) generates the tones/noise/etc... which is output from your computer soundcard.

you read this, correct?:
http://www.minidsp.com/applications/acoustic-measurements/umik-1-setup-with-rew