"powerdoc" wrote in message
oups.com...
I am about to start tackling some audio and FM repairs and was in the
process of finding a used distortion analyzer but was wondering if any
company produces a software program that could run through a PC to
measure distortion? I really hate to add a piece of equipment that'll
be used so infrequently if I don't have to. Any information? Thanks



I would view software distortion analyzers skeptically. First, in order to
get the sound into your computer, it has to be sampled by the sound card.
Sampling, by its nature,can't yield a 100% true representation of the
original waveform. The software has to interpolate the waveform between
samples. The higher the sample rate, the more accurate the interpolated
waveform will be, but most sound cards are limited to 44 KHz. That may be
good enough to listen to, but I would view it to be inadequate when trying
to do distortion analysis on a high frequency audio signal.
The software only has the samples of the original to do analysis on,
therefore, it can't give very accurate results over a wide range of
frequencies.

If I absolutely needed a distortion analyzer, I would shop Ebay or a hamfest
for an HP 334 or similar. Those instruments are superbly constructed, and
don't suffer from the sampling problem. You can't go wrong with one of
those.

--
Dave M
MasonDG44 at comcast dot net (Just substitute the appropriate characters in
the address)

Never take a laxative and a sleeping pill at the same time!!