100 Things #66: Quickly Post-Process Multiple Measurements With Average Curves

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SoundCheck includes a powerful array of post-processing options, including Average Curves. This step allows for instant averaging of data sets with two averaging options: power and complex. Curve average is perfect for working with data from microphone arrays, making this tool great for automotive and smart device measurement applications, or any device with large microphone arrays. Since SoundCheck is not limited to hardware inputs and outputs, huge measurements can be done simultaneously including up to 64 channels simultaneous acquisition. Once measured, SoundCheck can perform curve averaging to this data even within a sequence.

Quickly Post-Process Multiple Measurements With Average Curves

Try average curves in a sequence

Check out our full library of test sequences. There are sequences for common and specific audio measurement applications, and they make the perfect starting point to add average curve post processing to a sequence.

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SoundCheck comes with a lot of great post-processing options and one of my favorites is the Average Curves function which first appeared in SoundCheck 17.  This step lets you easily calculate the average of a group of curves and, although the step name doesn’t imply it, it can also be used to calculate the average of a group of waveforms. This is really useful for measuring microphone arrays such as those in automotive infotainment systems and smart devices.

First, we’ll place the data of interest into a Memory List group. Next, we select the group in the step editor’s Operand dropdown. There are two averaging options available; Power and Complex.  Power averaging excludes the phase from the calculation and should be used when the curves or waveforms aren’t from the same spatial position, for example when the data has been collected from a microphone array. A group of RTA curves is another example of where power averaging should be used since RTA analysis doesn’t calculate phase.  On the other hand, complex averaging should be used when trying to average out random background noise across many repeated measurements of the same device. Here we’ll apply Power Averaging, and you can see the result here.

SoundCheck can capture data from up to 64 microphones simultaneously, so whether the data is coming from multiple microphones, microphone arrays, or even multiple microphone arrays, you can capture the responses and analyze and average the results. Averaging steps can even be incorporated into a test sequence! As microphone arrays become more commonplace in many consumer devices, this measurement has many applications in smart device tests, automotive infotainment measurements, and beyond. How would you use this functionality? Let us know in the comments!