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SoundCheck 18 Released: New Features for Large-scale Integration and Multi-channel / Voice-activated Device Testing

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SoundCheck 18, the latest release of Listen, Inc.’s flagship audio test and measurement system, contains many new features focused on automation and simplicity. Some of these are specifically designed for large-scale integration in factory environments, while others are designed to accelerate R&D testing, particularly where multiple channels are required and/or voice-activated devices are being tested.

Test configuration data, such as limits, test levels, and test signals, can now be passed into SoundCheck from external programs using TCP/IP commands. By externally storing parameters, a single sequence can be used for multiple products, simplifying the number of sequences that a large organi­zation needs to maintain, and reducing test configuration time. This functionality is also useful for applications where a sequence needs to be run many times with different parameters, for example, testing voice recognition with a range of voices or test levels, or where SoundCheck tests are run as part of a larger automated test framework controlled using Python, C#, Visual Basic, LabVIEW, etc.

Setup time is reduced with true plug’n’play hardware configuration. Listen and Portland Tool & Die interfaces are simply connected via the USB cable, and the software automatically creates input and output signal paths and populates parameters such as sampling rate and calibration values. Furthermore, when substituting devices of the same type, SoundCheck will re-use the configuration pre­viously set up, either manually or during a sequence, so that signal paths and sequence configurations do not need to be updated. This offers significant time-savings when deploying a sequence over multiple stations accelerating set-up time for large-scale operations. New TEDS Support (with compatible Listen hardware) enables automatic identification, configuration and calibration of TEDS microphones and accelerometers, also saving time on initial hardware setup or whenever hardware is changed.

The development and optimization of test sequences has been simplified with improvements to gain control selection. Similarly, sampling rate management has been streamlined with automatic latency rate adjustment for devices where latency varies with sampling rate, and the ability to set sampling rate in the stimulus editor. Sampling rate when using WAV files is also now automatically adjusted, making it simpler to make measurement with wave file signals such as speech or music.

For MEMS microphone tests, the Portland Tool & Die MEMS interfaces can now be controlled from within SoundCheck for faster setup as well as greater measurement reliability as the device settings can be built into the test sequence. Se­quences using the R&D grade DCC-1448 interface will also work seamlessly with the production-grade PQC-1448, making it much simpler to transition sequences from the R&D lab to the produc­tion line.

Additional new features include WASAPI driver support for improved multichannel capabilities, and enhanced digital I/O control for easy conversion of sequences between hardware options.

Watch the New Features Video   

Listen Releases SoundCheck 17: New Features for Multichannel and Voice-Controlled Testing

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Save to MATLAB

Listen is excited to announce the release of SoundCheck Version 17. This new Windows/Mac release offers many features to simplify multi-channel and voice controlled testing, such as a new level and cross-correlation trigger, average curve/waveform post-processing functionality, the ability to easily read and work with multichannel wavefiles, multiple DC Connect control, and enhanced database options. On the usability side, SoundCheck 17 offers increased flexibility in color palettes, save to MATLAB option, and the ability to recall CSV formatted text files.

Today’s modern audio devices have two important testing requirements: the ability to test a voice activated device with no analog input, and the ability to control and test multiple channels simultaneously, for example, microphone or speaker arrays. SoundCheck 17 contains a host of new features to facilitate this. For voice-activated measurements on devices with no analog input, such as smart speakers, wearables, hearables and smart home devices, the new level & cross-correlation ‘smart trigger’ offers improved performance. By using a chirp-based conditioning tone and searching for the exact log sweep frequency, it is more robust and less susceptible to false triggers than simpler level and frequency triggers.

To save time when testing smart devices where it is necessary to test microphone or speaker arrays, SoundCheck 17 can now directly read multichannel WAV files from the memory list, signal generator and stimulus steps. Also for testing multi-channel arrays, multiple DC Connects can now be controlled, independently configured, and used for data acquisition within SoundCheck. The new Average Curve/WFM post processing function which allows the average curve (or waveform) of a selected group of data in the memory list to be obtained, is particularly useful for power averaging selected curves, averaging curves from different spatial positions (e.g. microphone arrays), and complex averaging of multiple measurements with background noise. Finally, the database module has been enhanced and is now it 4x faster and 3x more space-efficient than previous versions. This is particularly important for testing modern audio products with multiple transducers (microphone arrays, multiple speakers, etc.), as these often generate large volumes of data.

New Level and Cross-Correlation Trigger

Usability enhancements include improved color pallets which offer ultimate flexibility in defining colors for backgrounds, grids, cursors and graph lines. New default color palettes are included, and user-defined palettes can be saved as pre-set files which will be applied to any new display created. Multiple palettes can be saved, for example allowing different color sets for different applications. In addition, SoundCheck can now save any data (including memory list curves and Soundmap (time frequency analysis) data ) to  MATLAB for additional processing. Data is saved as a standard MAT file and can be manually or automatically saved in this format.

Additional new features include support for the new APTX HD codec for high resolution Bluetooth testing, a 64 bit Demo / Data Viewer which enables measured data to be recalled and viewed without the need to own a separate license, and the ability to recall CSV files as well as TXT files.

 

More Information: https://www.listeninc.com/products/soundcheck-software/specs/

Listen Releases SoundCheck Version 15

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New multimeter

Listen, Inc., is excited to announce the release of SoundCheck Version 15. This release expands the testing capability of SoundCheck with additional external control, calibration, audio mixing and hardware integration, and introduces the first in our redesigned virtual instruments, the multimeter.

The redesigned multimeter now offers two views, a compact ‘meter’ view, or an expanded detailed ‘settings’ view. In ‘meter’ view, a clear, simple level meter is displayed, which changes color to warn of overload or near overload values. Averaging type, weighting type and bandwidth are also shown. In expanded view, 4 different tabs for measurement, averaging, filters and limit setting are visible, and options such as linear/log scale, filtering and weighting options, etc. can be selected. Enhancements to the multimeter’s capabilities include the ability to measure DC voltage in addition to AC voltage so that SoundCheck can be used with a DC coupled interface for making audio electronic measurements, high and low pass filters for removing electrical noise and low frequency background noise, and automatic scaling to adjusts the range of the display based on the signal.

New  TCP/IP control functionality makes external control of SoundCheck simpler, yet more powerful, a valuable feature for anyone who needs to control SoundCheck from an external program, for example as part of an overall test plan or factory automation. It allows communication with SoundCheck via any programming language, on any operating system, either locally or through a network, so that a single computer can control multiple SoundCheck systems. It also features a more powerful and expandable command format for interacting with SoundCheck.

Other enhancements include accelerometer calibration and force measurement to enable testing of linear motors such as those used in haptic devices, an improved plot legend with choice of placement, faster setup with a new ‘auto-mode’ in the hardware editor, better control of Bluetooth interfaces and an improved audio mixer.

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Software Engineering Team Expands

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ben_sternListen is expanding its software development team staff with the appointment of Ben Stern to the position of Software Engineer. Ben, who graduated from Tufts University earlier this year with a B.S. in mechanical engineering, has a strong interest in acoustics, DSP and music. Prior to working at Listen, Ben interned at Sonos where he worked on their ‘Trueplay’ speaker tuning feature. While in college he started a student-run recording studio and managed and DJ’d college radio. When Ben is not working he plays bass in a local band and enjoys cooking.