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Cheapest price for SPL Meter?

S

SilkenRogue

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Nov 3, 2001
Messages
1,219
I'm looking for a cheap SPL meter - doesn't matter if its digital or analog, or what kind of output options it has. Doesn't need much range either, and top end of 126 is just fine.

Radio shack seems to have one of the cheapest I've found at 40 bucks - http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog_name=CTLG&product_id=33-4050

Thought maybe I'd see if I could find one for cheaper :D Any suggestions or is that best price I'll find?
 
That's what I paid for mine, also at radio shack. I'm not sure that you'll get a much better price than that anywhere, but you might look at froogle or ebay, both would be my first choices.
 
PM me and I'll give you a nice link for some test tones, and a spreadsheet for correcting and graphing the results form the analog RS meter. This is for a subwoofer, correct?
 
Actually, it's for the office I work at :) We need to test some general noise levels in various areas. I do however have some Yamaha stuff at home, and the receiver uses YPAO.... would this cheapo SPL meter be of benefit there too? I'm not really an audiophile :D
 
After looking around some more, I think Ratshack does have the best deal on the meters.... I'll head there today :D
 
Ratshack SPL meters are often used to calibrate surround sound rigs. Thay are handy for characterizing the you room response for subwoofers, and assisting your ear in getting a nice smooth frequency response curve. You play an array of test tones, sweeping from high to low, and plot the decible readings vs freq, and try to make the resulting graph line as straight and long as possible.
 
One thing to note: The Radio shack SPL meter only goes down to 50dB, which might be too high for checking things out around the office. A decent office comp probably won't hit 50dB at all, and the same applies for a lot of things. What do you plan on evaluating with this guy?
 
There are a number of noisy areas around office due primarily to noisy computer hardware, but also with some printer/folding/cutting equipment. Need to see how loud things are getting and what might need replacing.

Our main fileserver is a real screecher by the way.... dual processor with loud ass 60mm fans. I'd like some hard numbers so I can get those replaced ASAP. Damn thing is 10 feet away from me :/
 
SilkenRogue said:
Actually, it's for the office I work at :) We need to test some general noise levels in various areas. I do however have some Yamaha stuff at home, and the receiver uses YPAO.... would this cheapo SPL meter be of benefit there too? I'm not really an audiophile :D
Click to expand...

No it wouldn't. Stick with YPAO.
 
I would tend to trust RS SPL measurements and a excel graph of the room response over some Automagical config doohicky.

YPAO, does it really work or is it a marketing gimic?

Ypao and vtf3 series

It seems like it is an automatic frequency sweep and parametric EQ thingy. At the very least, you can run your own frequency sweeps to do an idiot check on the automatic calibration. In essence, you can determine the worth of YPAO yourself. :)
 
Auto EQ is a great idea, but I'm not sure the implementation is really there yet. For a couple of bucks and 15 minutes [or less] of your time, you can set things up and know that you got them right. Plus, SPL meters are fun to play with anyways =]
 
The test tones that I have were obtained from the link contained in the:

Subwoofer Setup Guide by Bossobass

They are mp3 files in this zip file...
http://www.phoenixlogic.com/images/aveq/1-12octave.zip

Use these correction factors with the analog RS SPL meter.

Code: 
Freq (htz)	Correction for Analog RS SPL meter (dB)
10		+20.5 
10.6		+20.5
11.2		+18
11.9		+18
12.6		+16.5
13.3		+16.5
14.1		+14
15		+14
15.8		+11.5
16.8		+11.5
17.8		+9.5
18.8		+9.5
20		+7.5
21.1		+7.5
22.4		+6
23.7		+6
25.1		+5
26.6		+4
28.2		+4
29.9		+4
31.6		+3
33.5		+3
35.5		+3
37.6		+3
39.8		+2.5
42.2		+2.5
44.7		+2
47.3		+2
50.1		+1.5
53.1		+1.5
56.2		+1.5
59.6		+1.5
63.1		+1.5
66.8		+1.5
70.8		+1.5
75		+1.5
79.4		+1.5
84.1		+1.5
89.1		+1.5
94.4		+1.5
100		+2
 
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