Audio spectrum analyzer  - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: rodpp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2019, 06:27:42 pm
content: Hi,Does anyone have any experience with the Takeda Riken "Digital Spectrum Analyzer" model Tr9305?It's frequency range is from 2.5mHz to 100KHz.Here is a documentation found in the internet:http://www.cieri.net/Documenti/Elettronica-articoli/Takeda-Riken%20-%20Operational%20Guide%20for%20TR-9305%20Digital%20Spectrum%20Analyzer%20(Application%20Note%204-1E).pdfNormally "Digital" equipment of that era is totally obsolete today, is it the case for this Audio Spectrum Analyzer, or is it worth yet?Regards,Rodrigo.

author: montemcguire
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2019, 10:35:44 pm
content: Looking through the manual, it seems to have nice features. The basic sampling seems to be about 12 bit or so, which is on the low side these days, but it can do synchronous averaging, so the noise floor can be pushed down a bit more than the 70dB. The memory is also small (1024 points) so that too will limit the resolution of the results you get. Depending on the type of work you're doing, it could still be a useful tool despite the low sampling and FFT resolution - it's still better than almost all digital scopes, which are almost always 8 bit or maybe 10 but if you're lucky), and has some nice built in software to do audio related calculations. But, it'll perform a lot worse than your average soundcard, so a soundcard with some software may be a better tool.If this were available in the early 80s, this would have been really useful to have!

author: Yansi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2019, 10:44:49 pm
content: Average PC soundcard may provide better results.

author: rodpp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2019, 12:53:01 am
content: Thank you very much @montemcguire for the detailed answer, and thanks @Yansi too.This analyser showed here for around USD400, and I thought that it would be worth it. I don't have any plans to use something like that in the near future, but I really like test equipments.I will let it go!Regards,Rodrigo.

author: DaJMasta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2019, 01:11:14 am
content: That kind of converter is not going to be much use for most modern audio gear, and a PC sound card will definitely give you better resolution and detail - though you'll have to pick your poison of the audio analyzer suites and you'll be limited to audio band frequencies instead of the ultrasonics this will do.A big upgrade but similar device would be a dynamic signal analyzer, and while an audio analyzer would have probably a bit more of a featureset overlap, it would likely be much more. For $400 I'd be looking at an HP 3561 DSA or a QA401 sound card, probably - either should get you a significant boost in dynamic range.

author: anotherlin
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2019, 06:56:58 am
content: With some luck, you may find an HP 3580A spectrum analyzer for around $400.It is (almost) completely analog (sweeping spectrum analyzer) but won't have some of the features of the digital FFT ones.However, its performance is amazing.Otherwise, HP DSAs would be a good choice.