Gustep
2008-07-07 03:10:05 UTC
Hello,
I am currently using an 18-bit NI-DAQ ADC / DAC card (PCI-6281) to
perform some sensitive tone level and distortion measurements over time
via FFTs. As a preamp, I am using the LT1678, which has exceptional
distortion and noise specs, particular at low frequencies - the 1/f
corner frequency is 5Hz or so. I also tried the same measurement with a
comparable 16-bit NI-DAQ card (PCI-6221), and found that the noise in
my measurements did increase.
So now that it appears that bit resolution matters in my measurements,
I am thinking about 24bit acquisition. National Instruments has some
very expensive 24-bit DSA cards like the PCI-4461, which I'd love to try, but these are too expensive to justify the purchase if I just want to try it. (I wonder if I could rent one or test it for a week...?). But maybe one of the many 24bit soundcards could also help me gauge the benefit of 24 bits. Especially the EMU 1212M is affordable and has a low noise
floor. The M-Audio Delta 1010LT is almost as good, and has 8 ADC inputs and 8 DAC outputs, so that's a great candidate, too.
So my question is, has someone already tried and compared NI-DAQ cards
to good sound cards for tone analysis? E.g., measuring the amplitude
stability of a 1kHz tone over time?
I did read a related post <a href="http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=690127#post690127" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">here</a>,
which claims that even a 16bit NI-DAQ card is better than a 24bit sound
card, but a few questions remain. For example, what VI was used for this
comparison? I think LabView default sound VIs are limited to only 16bits when acquiring data from sound cards, unfortunately (this may have changed with more recent versions of Labview). But I also know that you
can get some improved VIs over the web, for example <a href="http://www.zeitnitz.de/Christian/WaveIO/waveio.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">here</a>, which allow you to acquire up to 32bit into LabView 7.1 and up over your soundcard!
So does someone have experience with using soundcards with 24bit VIs and labview to do spectral analysis work? Any tips and sharing of test results is greatly appreciated.
I am currently using an 18-bit NI-DAQ ADC / DAC card (PCI-6281) to
perform some sensitive tone level and distortion measurements over time
via FFTs. As a preamp, I am using the LT1678, which has exceptional
distortion and noise specs, particular at low frequencies - the 1/f
corner frequency is 5Hz or so. I also tried the same measurement with a
comparable 16-bit NI-DAQ card (PCI-6221), and found that the noise in
my measurements did increase.
So now that it appears that bit resolution matters in my measurements,
I am thinking about 24bit acquisition. National Instruments has some
very expensive 24-bit DSA cards like the PCI-4461, which I'd love to try, but these are too expensive to justify the purchase if I just want to try it. (I wonder if I could rent one or test it for a week...?). But maybe one of the many 24bit soundcards could also help me gauge the benefit of 24 bits. Especially the EMU 1212M is affordable and has a low noise
floor. The M-Audio Delta 1010LT is almost as good, and has 8 ADC inputs and 8 DAC outputs, so that's a great candidate, too.
So my question is, has someone already tried and compared NI-DAQ cards
to good sound cards for tone analysis? E.g., measuring the amplitude
stability of a 1kHz tone over time?
I did read a related post <a href="http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=690127#post690127" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">here</a>,
which claims that even a 16bit NI-DAQ card is better than a 24bit sound
card, but a few questions remain. For example, what VI was used for this
comparison? I think LabView default sound VIs are limited to only 16bits when acquiring data from sound cards, unfortunately (this may have changed with more recent versions of Labview). But I also know that you
can get some improved VIs over the web, for example <a href="http://www.zeitnitz.de/Christian/WaveIO/waveio.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">here</a>, which allow you to acquire up to 32bit into LabView 7.1 and up over your soundcard!
So does someone have experience with using soundcards with 24bit VIs and labview to do spectral analysis work? Any tips and sharing of test results is greatly appreciated.