QuantAsylum QA400 Audio analyser

[gemini86]

That's too bad... I was hoping for a cool new toy.

After having used an E-MU interface for the better part of 7 years, and struggling with their below-par ASIO drivers, I'm not interested in taking up another buggy piece of equipment which may go belly up down the road, offering NO support once it does.

John, what's this AUDME you speak of? Google isn't helping me out here. I've been trying TrueRTA and ARTA for a while. Each has its pros and cons.

Installing Sigview now to see how that works out.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

In fact it's AUDMES
http://sourceforge.net/projects/audmes/
Too basic.
SiGVIEW is rather good, but does only FFT-based tests.
So far RMAA is what looks the most as an usable audio test software.

There are many acoustic measurement softwares, but very few dedicated to electronics.
I may have a look at RME interfaces, they seem to be recommended by a few software companies.

 

[gemini86]

I had used RMAA for a really long time, but I can't get it to work at higher sampling rates. My interface goes to 192K and ARTA works up there via ASIO drivers, but I can't get RMAA to do the same. Also, I've been having problems with freq sweeps being all over the place. Out of a sample of 10 sweeps, no 2 are the same, within +/- 8dB. This happens with every piece of gear in my studio. However, when I do a straight loop-back sweep, it's all nice and flat every time.

 

[Andy Peters]

OK, I've got the little bugger working, more or less, I would say rather less than more.
I can make it work only at 48kHz, no 192, with is a deal-breaker for me, since I want to be able to measure at least up to 60kHz.

Assuming that the thing is capable of High Speed USB, which is required for 192 kHz sample rates, the thing has to conform to the USB Audio Class v2.0, for which no native Windows driver exists. (That's right, Windows still doesn't support something that OS X has supported for six years.) It sounds like the device gracefully falls back to a Full Speed "Other Configuration" (USB term) so it works at 48 kHz.

Nothing on their web site indicates that drivers are provided or whether it supports High Speed USB Audio Class v2 or not.

Anyways, if they claim 192 kHz support they need a Windows driver.

It may well be that the device uses custom class drivers (like what Avid does with their MBoxes) instead of using the Audio Class, in which case the ability to use it with other software is severely limited.

I would have expected some indication from the software that the interface was not responding...

Indeed.

-a

 

[abbey road d enfer]

UPDATE:
I got a brief apologetic answer from QA's support, saying they had a "long week-end".
I invited them to read this thread.

 

[Kingston]

I had used RMAA for a really long time, but I can't get it to work at higher sampling rates. My interface goes to 192K and ARTA works up there via ASIO drivers, but I can't get RMAA to do the same. Also, I've been having problems with freq sweeps being all over the place. Out of a sample of 10 sweeps, no 2 are the same, within +/- 8dB. This happens with every piece of gear in my studio. However, when I do a straight loop-back sweep, it's all nice and flat every time.

Somewhat offtopic, but RMAA audio driver handling is very buggy indeed. You can get it to work at 96/192khz, knowing several tricks. Firstly, forget ASIO, it seems only MME works.

1. Set sound card sample rate to 96/192khz using some other software first. RMAA will freeze if you do it there. Do not try to do any measurement or calibration before this.
2. Do not use sound card MME output 1-2. Use any other and then route this one to 1-2 using sound cards internal mixer. thus bypassing this RMAA limitation. (again, RMAA will freeze of you try to do it there)

There was an additional step on Windows XP which I have forgotten, but for Windows 7 the above works and since RMAA is mostly brilliant and has no direct equivalent I keep doing this. I've also noticed the swept frequency measurements seem to "wobble", but I consider them an unimportant subset. Multitone frequency response, static noise/THD/IMD measurements are always trustworthy and repeatable.

 

[dfuruta]

My QA400 is working correctly at 192k, on windows XP.  There's enough noise above 30kHz or so that I'm not sure it's very useful, but it does work...

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Support at QA has given me some answers. Unfortunately, I don't think it will make the unit usable for me, since the creation of sweeps seems to rely on using some cryptic (for me) high-level language. I could live with the frequency response quirkiness and the absence of phase measurement, but not with the sweeps problem and 192kHz not working. I could probably make it work at 192 on one of the desktops, but like the practicality of a note book (mine runs on W7).

 

[Andy Peters]

UPDATE:
I got a brief apologetic answer from QA's support, saying they had a "long week-end".
I invited them to read this thread.

If they're based here in the colonies, we had yesterday off as a shopping day to celebrate the start of the summer*. A lot of people take long weekends, starting last Thursday. I stayed home and worked on the bathroom remodel.

-a

* Actually, it's Memorial Day, ostensibly dedicated to remembering those who died fighting in wars. But like most holidays, the only people who have the day off are the professionals. Hourly workers had to go in to staff the stores for the "Sales."

 

[abbey road d enfer]

If they're based here in the colonies, we had yesterday off as a shopping day to celebrate the start of the summer*.

On the forum, support is said to be located in China; I guess it's a ruse...

 

[Andy Peters]

Support at QA has given me some answers. Unfortunately, I don't think it will make the unit usable for me, since the creation of sweeps seems to rely on using some cryptic (for me) high-level language. I could live with the frequency response quirkiness and the absence of phase measurement, but not with the sweeps problem and 192kHz not working. I could probably make it work at 192 on one of the desktops, but like the practicality of a note book (mine runs on W7).

So have you opened the top to see what processor they use for the USB interface??

-a

 

[ruffrecords]

Support at QA has given me some answers. Unfortunately, I don't think it will make the unit usable for me, since the creation of sweeps seems to rely on using some cryptic (for me) high-level language. I could live with the frequency response quirkiness and the absence of phase measurement, but not with the sweeps problem and 192kHz not working. I could probably make it work at 192 on one of the desktops, but like the practicality of a note book (mine runs on W7).

So have you opened the top to see what processor they use for the USB interface??

-a

According to the USB VIDID returned by Linux (16C0:4e22) the vendor is VITO (Van Ooijen Technische Informatica). Check out this web page from his web site:

http://www.voti.nl/shop/catalog.html?USB-PID-10

Cheers

ian

 

[Andy Peters]

Support at QA has given me some answers. Unfortunately, I don't think it will make the unit usable for me, since the creation of sweeps seems to rely on using some cryptic (for me) high-level language. I could live with the frequency response quirkiness and the absence of phase measurement, but not with the sweeps problem and 192kHz not working. I could probably make it work at 192 on one of the desktops, but like the practicality of a note book (mine runs on W7).

So have you opened the top to see what processor they use for the USB interface??

-a

According to the USB VIDID returned by Linux (16C0:4e22) the vendor is VITO (Van Ooijen Technische Informatica). Check out this web page from his web site:

http://www.voti.nl/shop/catalog.html?USB-PID-10

Cheers

ian

They all support Full Speed USB only. No High Speed. Dunno how they can support 192 kHz!

-a

 

[abbey road d enfer]

So have you opened the top to see what processor they use for the USB interface??

-a

According to the USB VIDID returned by Linux (16C0:4e22) the vendor is VITO (Van Ooijen Technische Informatica). page from his web site:


Cheers

ian
[/quote]

They all support Full Speed USB only. No High Speed. Dunno how they can support 192 kHz!

-a
[/quote] How did you come to that conclusion?
I never had imagined the formal intricacies of USB.
The website says he has ceased selling his chips due to legal threats from usb.org since about 2008, does it mean QA are using VID/PID they acquired previously?

 

[ruffrecords]

USB 2.0 I thought was 12Mbits/s. 192Ksamples/s at 24 bits and two channels is just over 9Mbit/s. Possible?.

Cheers

Ian

 

[dfuruta]

From the leds on the panel, it looks like the device samples in little bursts, not continuously.  Perhaps it's not sending the data in real time?

 

[abbey road d enfer]

From the leds on the panel, it looks like the device samples in little bursts, not continuously.  Perhaps it's not sending the data in real time?

The test signal is described in the manual, some kind of bursts.

 

[Andy Peters]

USB 2.0 I thought was 12Mbits/s. 192Ksamples/s at 24 bits and two channels is just over 9Mbit/s. Possible?.

USB 2.0 supports three bus speeds: 1.5 Mbps (Low Speed), 12 Mbps (Full Speed) and 480 Mbps (High Speed).

This particular device is Full Speed (12 Mbps).

And it can support 192 kHz only if you're doing a single channel in OR out.

You can't record two channels and 192 kHz, nor can you play back two channels of 192 kHz, nor can you record one channel and play back one channel at 192 kHz.

You can't do full duplex (in and out) two channel at the same time.

That's why the Full Speed USB devices you see are limited to two-in/two-out 48 kHz.

-a

 

[Andy Peters]

OK, I figured it out.

VOTI has a VID and they were selling blocks of 10 PIDs. That has been against the USB spec since the very beginning, and about the only enforcement the otherwise toothless USB Implementer's Forum does is to stop people from using bogarted VIDs or selling PIDs. This is meant to prevent more than one device from having the same VIDID combination.

My assumption that the QA400 used a Microchip PIC was based on the VOTI page also selling various PICs which include USB. That is a bad assumption.

So to clear up the questions about whether the QA400 can support full-duplex stereo 192 kHz audio, someone needs to open up the box and look to see what processor they actually use. The USB VIDID isn't helpful here. A bonus would be for someone to plug it into a computer which has a program which can dump the full USB descriptor set (on a Mac, that would be USB Prober, included with the developer's tools).

Sorry for making this a lot more confusing than necessary.

-a

 

[Rochey]

Is it also a real time streamer? I was under the impression that it buffered most of the samples, then burst it accross the USB in data, not audio, format.