Pink_isn't_well wrote:
wrote on Tue, 28 Jun 2005 15:32:59 GMT in
rec.audio.tech:
Fifth problem: such a display yells you nothing about frequency
response. Assuming the data you recorded is useable, a linear
display of amplitude is next to useless.
Any free software I can use to open my waves and have them on a dB
scale?
Why? The data you have is probably useless. Displaying useless
data in the proper format is still pretty useless.
Do you remember all the other problems we discussed? The issue
of the display format is probably the easiest to solve and the
least useful of the bunch. It's not going to make your data
any more valid.
And it's been revealed that the epseakers you're measuring are
so-called "computer speakers." Almost without exception, these
sorts of things range from plain awful to truly, miserably
dreadful. They aren't toys, they're worse than toys. The
designers of these things (and I've had the misfortune of working
with some of them) are required to shoehorn as much pizzazz and
sparkle and over-hyped specifications into the absolute cheapest
package possible, and about the LAST thing on their mind is
reasonable acoustic performance. A fair number of them are, in
fact, made in a number of far east companies whose main product
line is high-volume (as in millions) injection-molded products
ranging anywhere from plastic forks and spoons to telephone
cases. They know next to nothing about loudspeakers, only how
to make a whole bunch of anything at the lowest possible price.
One of my clients makes a computer-based system and has to supply
speakers with it. Their customer expects the speakers to be worth
on the order of $100-$150 a pair, and the client had a devil of
a time finding speakers at OEM pricing for any more tha $20 the
pair!
They're junk. They measure like junk, they sound, as you said,
like junk.
Why bother?