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Hardware real-time spectrum analyzers and peak level meters?

soundwave76

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Any tips on cheap desktop (not rack) hardware products, that have real-time spectrum analyzers and/or peak level meters? These could be a cool addition to many systems. I personally miss the spectrum analyzer of the RME ADI-2 Pro I no longer have... :)
 
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soundwave76

soundwave76

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There are many DIY LED kits for example on eBay but I am looking for maybe a bit more PRO device...
 
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soundwave76

soundwave76

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I have tried. No luck yet. That's why I am asking for tips.
 

Habu

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Hello from France

Maybe TC Electronic Clarity M or Clarity M Stereo.....

https://www.tcelectronic.com/Catego...ors/Meters/CLARITY-M/p/P0C7T#googtrans(en|en)

https://www.tcelectronic.com/Catego...ers/CLARITY-M-STEREO/p/P0DC8#googtrans(en|en)

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/tc-electronic-clarity-m

IMG_2176.PNG


Sincerely yours

Habu
 
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DonH56

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Habu

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DWPress

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How about one of these? I had all the parts and made it for about $1.00.

IMG_6528.jpg
 

DWPress

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LOL, NO!

It's an iPhone 4s or 5 (I forget) with a $4 app called Spectrum which also does octave, FFT and spectral plots in various ways that I use on my current phone. I'm a bookbinder and printer so wrapping it up in some book board and pleather took about 10 minutes. Just made this prototype earlier this week when I saw someone else posting about the expensive single purpose boards on eBay from Asia.

Who among us on this list doesn't have a few old smartphones in a drawer? You could buy an old iPhone for less than one of the "new" OLED screen toys and use it just for this.

I thought briefly about marketing the enclosure but that sounds like a nightmare with all the different phone sizes and shapes so I'll let someone else steal this idea and stick to making books.
 

RayDunzl

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Yeah, but it has tubes...
 

DWPress

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Yeah, but it has tubes...
\
LOL, that's an unused little tube buffer sitting behind the display. Great idea though - little led light on top with a tube glued on it and I could charge $200 instead of the $20 I was thinking...

Here are some better pics. Anyone should be able to figure out the basic pieces based on these and make one for themselves:

IMG_6530.JPG IMG_6531.JPG IMG_6533.JPG IMG_6534.JPG IMG_6535.JPG
 
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soundwave76

soundwave76

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Nice!! This is an innovative idea and I do have several old iPhones laying around in the house. Kudos to this DIY! :)
 

Rick Sykora

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\
LOL, that's an unused little tube buffer sitting behind the display. Great idea though - little led light on top with a tube glued on it and I could charge $200 instead of the $20 I was thinking...

Here are some better pics. Anyone should be able to figure out the basic pieces based on these and make one for themselves:

View attachment 24260 View attachment 24261 View attachment 24262 View attachment 24263 View attachment 24264

Does this power up like a dedicated analyzer?

I found the Android phones allow you to alter the boot manager and launch the app at start. I have a couple of old iPhones and at least one iPad that I could use for this.
 

DWPress

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I don't think it's super accurate because it's using the phones microphone so whatever limitations might be involved there and phone placement - thus the perforations on the enclosure where the mouth would be. If there were a way to bring audio into the phones I'd suspect there's enough computational power.

Edit: It was a fun toy for the desk but discovered phones don't like to be plugged in all the time so too much fiddling with rebooting and such.
 
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