SOFTWARE FOR METROLOGICAL CHARACTERISATION OF PC SOUND CARDS

Ján Šaliga, Linus Michaeli

Abstract

The paper demonstrates virtual instrument software that performs simple and fast testing of any PC sound card with correctly preinstalled Windows driver in waveform recorder applications related to IEEE Std 1057, drafts IEEE Std. 1241 and DYNAD. In addition to the visualisation of recorded signal patterns in time and spectral domain, the software directly determines various basic parameters of input analog channels e.g. effective number of bits, THD, THD+noise, SINAD, etc. The parameter determination is performed both in spectral and time domains to compare the achieved results. A modified 4 parameters sine fit method was implemented with respect to soundblaster test nature. The software was developed in LabWindows/CVI (C language) with implementation of lowlevel Win32 API multimedia functions. The authors’ intention is to apply the software for computer component vendors and in educational demonstration of ADC testing principles. The paper contains also some example of achieved results from testing some soundblasters.

Keywords

VI software, PC sound card, waveform recorder testing, ADC dynamic testing, 4 parameter sine wave fitting method

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IMEKO-TC4-2001-162.pdf

DOI

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IMEKO TC

TC4 - Measurement of Electrical Quantities

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