AP reduces test time

With APx500 audio measurement software version 6.0, Audio Precision reports that multiple simultaneous input types are supported, enabling the concurrent measurement of up to 16 channels of digital and eight channels of analogue audio data. This new multi-input capability reportedly provides APx users critical cross-domain insight and the opportunity to reduce testing time.

Multiple simultaneous input types, or multi-input, is the ability to activate a second input type on any APx modular audio analyser, or APx515 analyser, and make measurements simultaneously on analogue and digital signals. With two input types enabled – for example, analogue for one or more reference microphones and PDM 16 for an array of MEMS microphones – there will be measurement results for every enabled input channel. In addition, the sensitivity or gain function of digital microphones and other converters can be directly found via a new derived result, Sensitivity, which displays the RMS Level relationship between the analogue and digital inputs.

The multi-input feature is available for use in both Sequence Mode and Bench Mode and supports all the essential measurements used for the analysis of microphones and microphone arrays. This includes Transfer Function, a dual-channel FFT analysis function added in the previous release of the software. With multi-input and Transfer Function, the complex, magnitude and phase relationship between multiple analogue or digital microphones or other cross-domain devices can be found.

For audio devices that can have both analogue and digital outputs active simultaneously, the new multi-input feature enables the simultaneous evaluation of those outputs, whether in a design lab or on a manufacturing line. Concurrent measurement of both signal types also has the potential to reduce test times, which is especially important in manufacturing applications.

Multi-input is especially useful for devices with digital microphones – smart speakers, mobile phones, Bluetooth headsets and other devices – as it allows for the simultaneous measurement of the device’s microphone in conjunction with an analogue measurement microphone as a reference.