Audio Testing Equipment

Phoenixcolt · Post by **Phoenixcolt** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 8:08 pm

Are RTAs and Oscilliscopes interchangable tools?

Will they generally read out SPL as well or would I need a seperate SPL meter?

I know an RTA is predominantly used to set an eq, to show you where your peaks and valleys are, and I know an Oscilliscope will show you if your sound is clipping but does either do the same work as the other?

Phoenixcolt · Post by **Phoenixcolt** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 8:16 pm

I don't expect to be higher than this by any means because I am not sure how well my system will do the way it is set up(for sq) but all of the SPL meters I can find only go up to 135 db, which is the threshold of pain for the human ear.

I want to think I can be higher than this if 1 RSd can do 130 but I probably won't be.

What do they use at like a db competition? Just a crazy competition grade spl meter?

Mackenzie · Post by **Mackenzie** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 10:19 pm

Term lab is what you will need, and is the most acccurate. They are expensive though.

Post by **stipud** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 7:05 am

Oscilloscope measures electronic output, RTA measures sound pressure with a microphone. The RTA takes it one step further by doing what is called a "fourier transform" on the input signal, which effectively tells you how much of each frequency is present in it.

Phoenixcolt · Post by **Phoenixcolt** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 8:57 am

So they are not interchangeable.

And if an RTA measures sound pressure with a mic, does that mean it can also measure SPL?

Post by **stipud** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 9:24 am

An RTA measures SPL for the full frequency range (i.e. 20Hz-20kHz). I wouldn't trust it as an SPL microphone for bass though, as they get pretty inaccurate under those loads.