Calibrate and Use Third Party Hardware with SoundCheck (100 Things #32)
SoundCheck supports any third party hardware audio interface and provides the capability to fully calibrate all signal paths. Watch this short video to learn more,
How to Calibrate and Use Third Party Hardware with SoundCheck
More Hardware Resources
Just because you can use any hardware with SoundCheck doesn’t mean that you should! Check our our Hardware Compatibility Table to see which audio interfaces we recommend.
Video Script: Calibrate and Use Third Party Hardware with SoundCheck
We offer many hardware options for use with SoundCheck including audio interfaces, reference microphones, microphone power supplies, and amplifiers. Our own Listen hardware comes pre-calibrated, and the values are stored and directly read from the device. When you purchase Listen-approved third party interfaces from us, such as RME and Lynx, we pre-calibrate them and provide a hardware QC sheet containing the Vp and latency values and complete setup instructions.
While these offer the fastest path to a calibrated test setup, we also understand you may prefer to use other third-party hardware with SoundCheck, especially if you already own a suitable audio interface. So, if you are wondering if you can calibrate and use your existing audio interface with SoundCheck, the good news is that you probably can.
Calibration is recommended before you make any measurement. This involves measuring the peak voltage (Vp) that can be input or output through the audio interface before it saturates so that measurements can be scaled to full digital scale (FSD). Latency is also measured during the calibration process. Even if you’re using hardware that is not listed in our Hardware Compatibility guide, SoundCheck supports, and calibrates, most third party interfaces using WDM, WASAPI, ASIO, Core Audio and NI DAQmx drivers.
Third party audio interface calibration is a one time process which shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes and helps ensure your measurements are accurate. We provide a calibration sequence that can be run from inside the Hardware editor at the click of a button, along with documentation to outline the procedure. The only additional equipment you need is a BNC-T connector and a multimeter.
While we love the tight integration and synergy that comes with using Listen hardware with SoundCheck, we understand that flexibility is also important, given the wide variety of applications and testing needs that we support. With the ability to calibrate and use many third party audio interfaces, including high-channel count audio interfaces, and other hardware, and use multiple interfaces simultaneously, often in different modes, SoundCheck offers true measurement flexibility – with accuracy.
