New Audio Analyser Day

[Dmoney]

Got myself an HP 8903B Audio Analyser. Operates at 20Hz - 100KHz
It's half low noise signal generator and half analyser. So it'll tell you all kinds of things about the level of a signal going into it like it's Total Harmonic Distortion. It'll also do sweeps to find frequency response and stuff. I need to figure out how to drive it and then get some amplifiers plugged into this bad boy! Maybe make a small rig to evaluate the frequency response of individual valves or something. I see a few projects on the horizon!

[Plenum n Heather]

Awesome! Looks like an old VCR !!

[Andrew W]

I love that. Proper rack-mount science. Are you using it to tech-check your recordings or just as a tool to try and understand more about the audio signal? Just curious.

[Dmoney]

I'm going to start making some valve amps as a proper venture so this is my first main tool investment.

It does a bunch of fancy little things. Being able to graph frequency response (eventually) should be handy and you can't see distortion that easily on an oscilloscope so doing measurements while knowing how distorted a signal is should be good.

So, in terms of a full system like an amp, that is interesting to me. However I've also thought about making a little rig and just putting a signal through a single capacitor and seeing what happens. say using a few different 0.022uf caps and seeing if the response to different criteria changes. Could try a similar thing with valves. Could be a few interesting things to do with it. I also want to get a Frequency Spectrum Analyser.

It's just about being able to quantify things for myself and about having the means to do real tests, instead of just saying "this type of 12AX7 is warmer".