[sdiy] Audio test generator and mesurement tool - can anyone suggest a good set?

cheater00 . cheater00 at gmail.com
Mon Apr 22 19:07:08 CEST 2013


Hi guys,
I'm slowly building up my workbench, and after getting a Tek 7704 I
now need a good sinewave generator. I thought to myself, why buy just
a sinewave generator, when I could get a distortion meter? Those have
sinewave and square built in, are of variable frequency, and it's
better to have one large box than two large boxes.

Could someone suggest a good distortion analyzer that can be had
relatively inexpensively? I'm probably looking at vintage equipment at
this point because it can be had fairly cheaply. Something around 100
Euro would be a good start, but it's only a very roughly estimated
price range.. maybe those things can be had for much less -- or only
for much more?

Also: are distortion analyzers usually limited to 20 Hz - 20 kHz, or
are there ones that go below 1Hz and high above?

What is the 'workhorse' distortion analyzer? Is there one or a few
that were very good and very popular? It's important to me not to buy
something relatively unknown, so that when it breaks I can find
replacements, schematics, and people who know how to repair them.

What other tools - other than a distortion analyzer - could I see
myself using when building filters, mixers, amplifiers, etc? In the
future I'd also like to work a bit on tube circuits, but this is not
currently a major focus.

My plan is to get a distortion analyser (with integrated square and
sine wave oscillators), and I already have a frequency counter for the
Tek 7000 coming in. I'd probably get a curve tracer at some point too,
and maybe a precision current and voltage source or precision
amplifier. Still need an esr/LC meter, I saw some boxes online. To
round  this off I'd probably get an isolation transformer and possibly
variac (or both in one box). Am I missing something as far as the most
basic measurement equipment goes?

Thanks,
D.



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