Test and Measurement News

HiFi manufacturer Tangent stakes its reputation on Prism Sound audio test equipment

Cambridge, UK: The audiophile customers who keep the HiFi market afloat are renowned for being sticklers when it comes to quality. Of course they want innovative products that look good in their living rooms, but perhaps of greater importance is the audio fidelity of the equipment they buy.

Tangent dScope Series III

Manufacturers that want to succeed in this highly competitive business need accurate and reliable test equipment to check the audio quality of their products before they leave the factory. Listening tests may pick up obvious problems, but in-depth audio analysis requires something more sophisticated than simply a pair of ears.

Danish HiFi manufacturer Tangent has chosen Prism Sound's dScope Series III audio analyser as its test solution because it is not only powerful and accurate but also very portable and versatile.

Tangent, originally established in the 1970s in the UK by a group of dedicated HiFi enthusiasts, re-launched the brand in 2005 as a Danish company. Tangent designs and engineers everything in Denmark and has a reputation for innovative design and for producing consistently high quality products that are highly recommended by reviewers. Its range includes loudspeakers, table radios, sub woofers, mini HiFi systems, HiFi separates and accessories.

Paw Winther Lemming, the company's Technical Manager, says: "We use our Prism Sound dScope Series III audio analyzer for all audio measurements across our entire product range. The instrument sees a good deal of use and on the occasions when we have needed to go beyond straightforward audio analysis tasks, Prism Sound's support staff have always been very helpful and have actually assisted us in developing some custom test applications."

Prism Sound has been supplying successful high quality audio test solutions for more than 20 years. The company's solutions provide state-of-the-art testing capabilities, backed up by consultancy and support services that are recognised as the best in the industry.

The dScope Series III offers comprehensive analogue and digital audio signal generation and analysis, plus support for digital audio carrier testing, quasi-anechoic microphone/loudspeaker analysis and testing of Windows® sound devices. Users can also define their own analysis filters or measurement algorithms, enabling dScope Series III to go far beyond the hugely flexible tool that is already provided as standard. dScope Series III can be easily automated using its built in VBScript interpreter, enabling the creation of custom test routines and pass/fail limit checking. Furthermore, Test automation can also be accomplished with dScope's "COM" interface, when using external automation software. This makes dScope Series III ideally suited to production line testing applications, where testing of many different types of functionality in different domains (analogue, digital, electronic, acoustic) can all be accomplished using this single instrument.

The dScope Series III system comprises a Windows PC (XP® and Vista® compatible) software application coupled with an external high-precision audio I/O processor for equipment-under-test (EUT) connection.

Lemming adds that the dScope Series III is especially useful when it comes to identifying unwanted artefacts such as low level distortion or noise components.

"Obviously you don't want these anywhere in your audio equipment, but picking them up is not something you can do reliably just by conducting listening tests, and often you need something more sophisticated than a basic THD+N measurement," he says. "It is really important that you spot these issues before the equipment leaves the factory, otherwise they can come back and bite you on the tail, which is not something we want."

Lemming says that along with portability and versatility, Prism Sound's dScope Series III audio analyser also provides a very cost effective solution to audio testing.

"It has a number of incredibly useful features, especially the FFT Detector functions, which I particularly like," he explains. "These functions allow you to isolate and measure noise and distortion components in much more detail than a THD+N measurement. I still have a lot to learn about the unit and what it can do, but I already love it and would happily volunteer to be Prism Sound's private beta tester if they want to give me another unit to take home!"

Simon Woollard, Applications Engineer for Prism Sound, adds: "From my own experience working in HiFi, I understand Paw's need to analyse to the nth degree. dScope Series III includes some really powerful tools to help design engineers and manufacturers to rapidly obtain a comprehensive picture of how their products are performing. With up to 40 dual-channel FFT Detector measurements executing and updating at the same time, dScope users are presented with unrivalled levels of analysis detail, and can therefore focus their time and energy on what they do best, i.e. refining their designs and obtaining ever-improving levels of audio fidelity, rather than spending endless hours making measurements."

Woollard adds finally: "Unfortunately for Paw and his dreams of becoming a private dScope beta tester, he missed our beta test program by some nine years or so! The good news though, is that the end result is a proven and reliable audio test platform, and one which has the support of many of the world's leading design houses in domestic Hi-Fi and consumer audio."