I am interested in a program that will objectively test the
quality of the sound card in my pc. A quick search on
Google does not turn up anything useful. Does anyone have a
suggestion, preferably Freeware or less than $20
--
Murray

M. Treloar wrote:
I am interested in a program that will objectively test the
quality of the sound card in my pc. A quick search on
Google does not turn up anything useful. Does anyone have a
suggestion, preferably Freeware or less than $20
Why not try the Rightmark Audio Analyzer RMAA from:

audio.rightmark.org

And its free too!
Does frequency response, noise level, dynamic range THD, IMD and stereo
crosstalk all in one go.

Has matured well to version 5.2 now.

Have fun.

Wilfried Adam

M. Treloar wrote:
I am interested in a program that will objectively test the
quality of the sound card in my pc. A quick search on
Google does not turn up anything useful. Does anyone have a
suggestion, preferably Freeware or less than $20

A assure you that a simple test for objective sound quality has been the
holy grail of the audio industry for nearly a century now.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

In article e.rogers.com writes:

I am interested in a program that will objectively test the
quality of the sound card in my pc.

How about recording some music with it and listening with your ears.
They're free (or a couple of bucks if you need fresh batteries for
your hearing aid).

Check the PCAVX website. There are loads of sound card tests there,
and Arny explains his test setups. Nothing too fancy or expensive, but
you need to be able to interpret the results. You won't find a program
that tests your sound card and shows you the results on scale of bad
to good.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

"M. Treloar" wrote in message
. cable.rogers.com...
I am interested in a program that will objectively test the
quality of the sound card in my pc. A quick search on
Google does not turn up anything useful. Does anyone have a
suggestion, preferably Freeware or less than $20
--
Murray

can someone explain how a soundcard can acurately test itself by looping the
output to an input? it seems to me that with perameters like freq response
errors could cancel out giving a false reading.

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1071412068k@trad
In article
e.rogers.com
writes:

I am interested in a program that will objectively test the
quality of the sound card in my pc.

How about recording some music with it and listening with your ears.
They're free (or a couple of bucks if you need fresh batteries for
your hearing aid).

Check the PCAVX website. There are loads of sound card tests there,
and Arny explains his test setups. Nothing too fancy or expensive, but
you need to be able to interpret the results. You won't find a program
that tests your sound card and shows you the results on scale of bad
to good.

Well, that would probably be the PCAVTech web site at www.pcavtech.com .

Ironically, I've become a heavy user of the Audio Rightmark program as
evidenced by this page at PCAVTech:

http://www.pcavtech.com/pwramp/boostaroo/

One can also find a number of Audio Rightmark tests with google. For example
the following search strings give a lot of interesting results:

audio rightmark digi001
audio rightmark layla
audio rightmark audiophile

"Wilfried Adam" wrote in message

M. Treloar wrote:
I am interested in a program that will objectively test the
quality of the sound card in my pc. A quick search on
Google does not turn up anything useful. Does anyone have a
suggestion, preferably Freeware or less than $20

Why not try the Rightmark Audio Analyzer RMAA from:

audio.rightmark.org

And its free too!

IMO, an amazing value.

Does frequency response, noise level, dynamic range THD, IMD and
stereo crosstalk all in one go.

Too bad it doesn't do jitter.

Has matured well to version 5.2 now.

Well kinda-sorta. It has picked up a few bugs along the way, such as
constantly forgetting my changes when I change test options, test signals.
I ended up editing my registry under the key "rmaa".

Thanks good program good info
Max Arwood

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"Wilfried Adam" wrote in message

M. Treloar wrote:
I am interested in a program that will objectively test the
quality of the sound card in my pc. A quick search on
Google does not turn up anything useful. Does anyone have a
suggestion, preferably Freeware or less than $20

Why not try the Rightmark Audio Analyzer RMAA from:

audio.rightmark.org

And its free too!

IMO, an amazing value.

Does frequency response, noise level, dynamic range THD, IMD and
stereo crosstalk all in one go.

Too bad it doesn't do jitter.

Has matured well to version 5.2 now.

Well kinda-sorta. It has picked up a few bugs along the way, such as
constantly forgetting my changes when I change test options, test signals.
I ended up editing my registry under the key "rmaa".

"Tim Perry" wrote in message t...

can someone explain how a soundcard can acurately test itself by looping the
output to an input? it seems to me that with perameters like freq response
errors could cancel out giving a false reading.

True. In loopback configuration, you always measure the sum of both
soundcard input and output. This makes it not very useful when comes
to measuring accurately and separately the output and input of the
soundcard. Another example apart from frequency response: output noise
floor is usually quite lower than input noise floor, but the former
always gets masked by the later in a loopback configuration, and you
end measuring the input SNR.

Also, I guess loopback measurements are useless when comes to
measuring jitter, because jitter is supposed to be the same in both
output and input, if the clock driving both ADC and DAC is the same,
and then cancels at the measurement.

For measuring accurately such things, you need a separate reference
soundcard, and run the tests asynchronously.

"Tim Perry" wrote in message

"M. Treloar" wrote in message
. cable.rogers.com...
I am interested in a program that will objectively test the
quality of the sound card in my pc. A quick search on
Google does not turn up anything useful. Does anyone have a
suggestion, preferably Freeware or less than $20
--
Murray

can someone explain how a soundcard can acurately test itself by
looping the output to an input? it seems to me that with perameters
like freq response errors could cancel out giving a false reading.

That could happen, but in about 5 years of sound card testing for my
www.pcavtech.com web site, I really never saw it happen. Or maybe I did see
it happen but it was so infrequent that I've forgotten - you can check the
results for yourself!

What always seems to happen is that both the record and play sides of the
sound card degrade the sound in similar fashions. They both roll off the low
bass and the high treble and they both may put a few squiggles in-between.
They both add noise for sure, and they also typically add similar enough
kinds of nonlinear distortion that that increases as well.

There's actually far more serious problems with loopback testing:

There is the probability that the card performs far worse in full duplex
mode than in half duplex mode. I saw that happen many times. One thing that
can happen is that if you try to record and play concurrently, the card's
performance is poorer than if you recorded and played with the card, but at
different times.

There is also the probability that the record and play halves of the card
don't have symmetrical performance, and one side of the card drags the whole
test down, while in actual use you'd mostly use the other, better-performing
half. I've also seen that happen a number of times. If a card has
asymmetrical performance, its usually the record side that is the worst.
This is a probably a design choice, because the performance of the best
converters tends to be symmetrical.

No, the loopback test is if anything a reasonable worst case test. It
relates strongly to what we do in audio production, because unlike
consumers, we both record and play the music we listen to and often do both
at the same time.

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message

M. Treloar wrote:
I am interested in a program that will objectively test the
quality of the sound card in my pc. A quick search on
Google does not turn up anything useful. Does anyone have a
suggestion, preferably Freeware or less than $20

A assure you that a simple test for objective sound quality has been
the holy grail of the audio industry for nearly a century now.

The best solution is to make equipment so good that it has no sound. This
seems to actually happen from time to time.

Thanks for the ideas and URLS

--
Murray