Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Analog vs Digital SPL Meters

Well, I brought home the digital SPL meter tonight being that I'm not going in for a week and I don't want to leave the audio techs without a good meter, and I've never really used the digital one much, besides for the occasional test for liability purposes for concerts so thought I'd see for myself how it was.

Wow, do I hate it. A lot.

Watching a mildly swinging needle is one thing. Watching the numbers skip between 3 different numbers is worthy of an eye roll. Gee, thanks, little meter buddy... you're within 100% of the correct value - almost 50% each way.

Good enough for now, I'll bring home the analog one in a week and fine tune the levels.

Funny though how you perceive sub levels to be less than they really are - as a test of my hearing, I zeroed all the levels and guestimated at the right balance. I was close... at most 2dB off, except the sub, where I was 8dB out.

Bren R.

Yeah, I was initially way off on sub calibration as well. It's almost counter-intuitive when calibrating for music. You spend a couple hundred dollars or more on a sub and then adjust the gain so that it doesn't really call attention to itself. Can't appreciate it until you spend a little time with familiar music. It's frustrating at first, though.

I held off on SPL meter purchase until analog was available from Rat Shack. Just didn't like the digital readout.

Weird! I have the digital meter but I must be doing something wrong. When I calibrate my speakers using the pink noise from either my receiver, or Avia or DVE, the meter goes to one number and stays there. It doesn't move between numbers at all.

It's been awhile, but when using the 1 Hz increment tones to measure the frequency response of my system, when using a very low tone or two, it seems to me I remember the changing # phenomenon. But, for whatever reason, for me, it is easy to watch the meter read 79, then 80, then 81, then 80, then 79 then 80, then 81, and realize that 80 is the average #.

With the analog meter (I have one of those also), I still have to average the reading from a moving needle ("OK the needle is swinging from there to there, so the middle of that is right about THERE"), and then translate the reading from analog to digital ("OK the average is right about on that line, and I'm on the 80 scale so that makes that reading 83"). Of course, the translation only takes a fraction of a second, but it still takes longer, and is more difficult, albeit only slightly, for me, than using the digital.

So, whether the sound pressure is static or fluctuating, for me, the digital readout is always a bit easier to read, than the needle. I'm confused. (no cracks!)