JL Audio MAX kit

4thtry

Yesterday I watched this live stream from Erin's Audio Corner. Erin mentioned that he will be using the JL Audio MAX kit for making amplifier measurements in the the future. Seems to be mainly directed at the car audio digital design market, but can also be used for home audio. Kind of pricy (US3.5k), so I don't think I will be purchasing one of these any time soon. However, I have been reviewing the videos and it looks like a very powerful and well engineered piece of gear. Really cool looking 5 microphone testing fixture. Thoughts?

MAX kit:
https://www.jlaudio.com/pages/max™-audio-measurement-system-overview

Live stream link:

dynamo

Wow that’s pretty cool.

JL stuff consistently functions well in my experience, they just don’t forget to charge you for that. I suspect this probably also works quite well.

dcibel

Looks cool, but expensive, so I'll stick with my cheap DIY solution . Looks like a pretty great product for people that do professional audio installations. The Tun software is free to try to see what it can do. My main concern would be long term support/updates with a proprietary system.

If Erin is aiming that at amplifier measurements because of the high level inputs, I would assume the expensive gear mostly buys credibility of his measurements over just using a voltage divider with a standard audio interface.

ScottS

I'll have to dig into the JL gear a little more. I went for the Quantasylum gear for ease of use and at least somewhat standardized measurement setup/results. I appreciate that one needs to establish some level of credibility if publishing measurements. In my case, I tested quite a few small, cheap amplifiers that had been tested by Audio Science Review or other independent sources before I was willing to post anything as a representative measurement. From my own perspective, the Quantasylum analyzer plus electronic load is less than $1k, but I still haven't fully explored its limitations with respect to how good an amp it can test accurately before reaching its limitations. I am currently in the process of assembling an electronic load that can test higher power amplifiers without adding measurable distortion. That load will consist of a series-parallel array of Arcol power resistors that will handle enough power for any reasonable amp that can be powered from a 110V circuit and form either a 4 or 8 ohm load and provide some additional voltage attenuation.

If a lower distortion floor is needed, a 5 figure Audio Precision analyzer will due the trick, or there are a few other options that still require some thought, knowledge, and sweat equity to actually get working correctly with confidence in the results. I currently have a Topping D10s that I can use to convert USB into optical or coax digital to test certain HT products reasonably transparently that otherwise have analog inputs that pass through an ADC. If I add an E1DA ADC to the D10s, I will have everything I need (using REW) to do very high precision amp measurements - but will lose some of the convenience of the Quantasylum gear. Until I establish that I really need that extra precision and decide I want to devote more time to audio pursuits, I will likely stick with the Quantasylum gear - which is quite user friendly.

It's easy to say that all you need is a voltage divider and an audio interface until you actually try to do something and figure out how many variables are actually in play.

4thtry

Great info, Scott & dcibel. I am just beginning my journey down this rabbet hole. I'm finding that just hooking up my soundcard to the DUT is no simple task, with lots of pitfalls. Just watched this video from Ray Gianelli about how connecting an analyzer directly to the dummy load instead of the DUT can make a huge difference in the measurements.