Test and Measurement News

Meridian Adds A Second Prism Sound dScope To Its R&D Facilities

Cambridgeshire, UK - April 2006: Audio and video equipment manufacturer Meridian has recently acquired its second Prism Sound dScope III audio analyzer, which it is using as part of the development of DSP code and for the development of research tools and experiments.

Based in Huntingdon where it has been innovating and crafting award-winning home entertainment products for over 25 years, Meridian offers four distinct product ranges that can be combined to build a wide variety of systems to suit every application, room size or budget. These include loudspeakers, optical disc players, video projectors and surround controllers.

Rhonda Wilson, head of DSP and Research at Meridian, says the company acquired its first Prism Sound dScope III in July 2005 and immediately put it to use in the Research and Development department. "The main advantage of the dScope III is its desktop convenience," Wilson says. "It has a range of useful features but the functions we use most are the frequency response and FFT measurements. Wilson adds that the two units are in daily use by Meridian R&D staff. "They allow us to check details of DSP code as we go, which helps us achieve reliable code more quickly," she says.

Launched in 2002, Prism Sound's dScope is suitable for a wide range of digital and analogue audio applications and is used in many market sectors including broadcast, multimedia, CD, DVD, computer audio, transducer, digital telephony and communications. It is comprehensive and accurate for R&D, portable and intuitive for maintenance or field service and fast, automatic and IT-friendly for the production line.

As well as covering the traditional audio test functions, dScope incorporates the important new features needed to work with the latest audio technologies. These include digital interface test tools such as carrier waveform and eye-pattern display, jitter measurement and AES3/IEC60958 channel status generation and analysis as well as support for higher sampling rates. dScope has a uniquely simple, state-of-the-art synchronous multi-tone capability, which can measure dozens of parameters simultaneously.