[Cotnijoe]

I'm not sure bro, it's cheaper than I paid as well, but I look at it like I got it way before everyone else when it first came out and got to use it for a good amount of time.

I think of it like video game consoles when they first come out. I guess they just get cheaper over time. Maybe something else is coming down the pipe.

 
Vibro labs is doing a 20% holiday sale, and a 50% off for the Veritas. Got an newsletter from them!

 

[Hisoundfi]

Vibro labs is doing a 20% holiday sale, and a 50% off for the Veritas. Got an newsletter from them!

I think of it as a smart move honestly. It's gna be cool to see more people get their hands on it. It really is a cool little tool to have if you're in this hobby

 

[csglinux]

Does anybody know what's happened to Luke? I put an order in last year and nothing but silence

 

[CraftyClown]

  Does anybody know what's happened to Luke? I put an order in last year and nothing but silence

 
That's odd. I got mine early December. Maybe he's on holiday?

 

[CraftyClown]

Hey guys, I'm not sure if this would even be possible but would there be way of using the veritas to measure SPL?

 

[bartzky]

Yes it is, but you will need a multimeter and at least one inear with known efficiency.

 

[CraftyClown]

Yes it is, but you will need a multimeter and at least one inear with known efficiency.

 
I don't have a multimeter but I could get one. I have some Etymotic ER4-XR, would they do?

 

[csglinux]

I'm afraid I'm not understanding something here. I have a couple of multimeters at home, but mine only measure things like voltage, current, resistance, etc. I'm not sure how that would help? Your measurement software won't know about your soundcard and mic until and unless you calibrate it. You could buy an SPL meter? The cheapest option I can think of here (if you already own Apple products) would be using some known software/hardware combo like the SPLnFFt or SoundMeter apps for iPhone. I hate to recommend Apple products, because I hate Apple But these apps are already calibrated for the hardware and iPhone mic. If you get a similar app for Android (I use SoundMeter for Android), you'll have to calibrate it, because the app developer generally won't know (or have calibrated) the app for all possible Android phones/mics.

You'd have to try and measure using your iPhone mic at the end of the tube, and then you should be good for any future measurements using the Vibro Veritas mic. Depending on what software you use for your FR measurements, a simple integral under that curve should give you OASPL.

I was looking into all this a while ago when I had some issues with CanOpener (the iPhone app). It's supposed to know about a range of IEMs (like ER4S) and give you the SPL level in dB at your current volume setting. I'd be interested to hear any others' experiences with CanOpener, because I didn't find it very accurate and my emails to Goodhertz support went unanswered.

P.S. I think I see what bartzky is saying. Supplying a known vrms to an IEM with a known efficiency should give you a known SPL to calibrate against. I think I'd still rather go with a good SPL meter.

 

[CraftyClown]

I'm afraid I'm not understanding something here. I have a couple of multimeters at home, but mine only measure things like voltage, current, resistance, etc. I'm not sure how that would help? Your measurement software won't know about your soundcard and mic until and unless you calibrate it. You could buy an SPL meter? The cheapest option I can think of here (if you already own Apple products) would be using some known software/hardware combo like the SPLnFFt or SoundMeter apps for iPhone. I hate to recommend Apple products, because I hate Apple But these apps are already calibrated for the hardware and iPhone mic. If you get a similar app for Android (I use SoundMeter for Android), you'll have to calibrate it, because the app developer generally won't know (or have calibrated) the app for all possible Android phones/mics.

You'd have to try and measure using your iPhone mic at the end of the tube, and then you should be good for any future measurements using the Vibro Veritas mic. Depending on what software you use for your FR measurements, a simple integral under that curve should give you OASPL.

I was looking into all this a while ago when I had some issues with CanOpener (the iPhone app). It's supposed to know about a range of IEMs (like ER4S) and give you the SPL level in dB at your current volume setting. I'd be interested to hear any others' experiences with CanOpener, because I didn't find it very accurate and my emails to Goodhertz support went unanswered.

 
 
I have a basic SPL meter, I have the Veritas and I have REW. In my rather simplistic thinking, I figured I could use a combination of the three to take an SPL reading.
 
Not proving as simple as I'd hoped 

 

[csglinux]

I think you're close! I would go with your SPL meter to calibrate, rather than a multimeter and an IEM. I understand where bartzky is coming from, but I think that route is even more complicated, because efficiencies are usually given in dB/mW and you will also need to know the exact impedance at the given frequency in order to get the output wattage.

 

[CraftyClown]

I think you're close! I would go with your SPL meter to calibrate, rather than a multimeter and an IEM. I understand where bartzky is coming from, but I think that route is even more complicated, because efficiencies are usually given in dB/mW and you will also need to know the exact impedance at the given frequency in order to get the output wattage.

 
 
So are you suggesting I can calibrate REW with the SPL meter and then play music/tone/noise through the IEMs connected to veritas and measure that way?

 

[castleofargh]

the problem with the spl meter is the accuracy and if you still have the same accuracy once you try to measure a sealed er4. a multimeter and the er4, that would make things a lot easier. you set your output to 200mV with a test tone of known amplitude(if the signal is at -6db, it means the voltage you read is half the FS voltage on that volume level). and with a little faith that your multimeter can deal with it(usually cheap multimeters are ok for low frequencies but I suggest trying a few on devices with know full scale voltage like a DAP or a cellphone).
anyway you end up set for 200mV, and voila! you can calibrate REW by entering the value in db you read on your certificate for 200mV ^_^.
 
I calibrated with another etymotic at the beginning, and the er4sr gave me withing 0.5db of the certificate when inserted at the same depth. so I'd say etymotic is fairly reliable as a starting point.

 

[CraftyClown]

  the problem with the spl meter is the accuracy and if you still have the same accuracy once you try to measure a sealed er4. a multimeter and the er4, that would make things a lot easier. you set your output to 200mV with a test tone of known amplitude(if the signal is at -6db, it means the voltage you read is half the FS voltage on that volume level). and with a little faith that your multimeter can deal with it(usually cheap multimeters are ok for low frequencies but I suggest trying a few on devices with know full scale voltage like a DAP or a cellphone).
anyway you end up set for 200mV, and voila! you can calibrate REW by entering the value in db you read on your certificate for 200mV ^_^.
 
I calibrated with another etymotic at the beginning, and the er4sr gave me withing 0.5db of the certificate when inserted at the same depth. so I'd say etymotic is fairly reliable as a starting point.

 
Ok, so some of that went a bit over my head. 

 
Essentially though your suggesting a multimeter would work for this, but not a cheap one? Can you think of one that would be suitable?
 
You didn't explicitly say so, but this is all done via the Veritas still, yes?

 

[csglinux]

  the problem with the spl meter is the accuracy and if you still have the same accuracy once you try to measure a sealed er4. a multimeter and the er4, that would make things a lot easier. you set your output to 200mV with a test tone of known amplitude(if the signal is at -6db, it means the voltage you read is half the FS voltage on that volume level). and with a little faith that your multimeter can deal with it(usually cheap multimeters are ok for low frequencies but I suggest trying a few on devices with know full scale voltage like a DAP or a cellphone).
anyway you end up set for 200mV, and voila! you can calibrate REW by entering the value in db you read on your certificate for 200mV ^_^.
 
I calibrated with another etymotic at the beginning, and the er4sr gave me withing 0.5db of the certificate when inserted at the same depth. so I'd say etymotic is fairly reliable as a starting point.

Interesting idea - thanks I think the ER4, ER4SR and ER4XR have different ratings, because ER4SR/XR are nominally 50 Ohm, but ER4S is/was 100 Ohm or thereabouts, right? Also, does Ety really rate their sensitivity based on mV alone? (And is this certificate the one that comes in the box when they paired the left/right buds?) Also, how can we know how much current it's going to absorb? Wouldn't that depend on the test tone, give that the Ety's impedances varies wildly (upward) after about 1 kHz? Do we need to use a low frequency to sit within the rated impedance range?

 

[castleofargh]

 

  the problem with the spl meter is the accuracy and if you still have the same accuracy once you try to measure a sealed er4. a multimeter and the er4, that would make things a lot easier. you set your output to 200mV with a test tone of known amplitude(if the signal is at -6db, it means the voltage you read is half the FS voltage on that volume level). and with a little faith that your multimeter can deal with it(usually cheap multimeters are ok for low frequencies but I suggest trying a few on devices with know full scale voltage like a DAP or a cellphone).
anyway you end up set for 200mV, and voila! you can calibrate REW by entering the value in db you read on your certificate for 200mV ^_^.
 
I calibrated with another etymotic at the beginning, and the er4sr gave me withing 0.5db of the certificate when inserted at the same depth. so I'd say etymotic is fairly reliable as a starting point.

 
Ok, so some of that went a bit over my head. 

 
Essentially though your suggesting a multimeter would work for this, but not a cheap one? Can you think of one that would be suitable?
 
You didn't explicitly say so, but this is all done via the Veritas still, yes?

krkrkrkr <- sound of me laughing
 
yes it's done with the veritas, else there is no point. a test tone could be full scale(reaching 0db) or not, as the multimeter will measure the signal, if the signal isn't maxed out you need to account for that when estimating the actual max voltage you get from the amp at a given setting. it's a silly detail, but I've messed up with that a significant number of time so I mention it ^_^.
 
I'm all for dirt cheap multimeter, I was just warning that those stuff aren't audio analyzers, the AC voltage measurements will most likely be made to work well on 50 or 60hz and 110 or 220volt for home usage. it's not designed to measure 15mv at 20khz. some can be, but they cost real money.
so what I did with my dirt cheap one was to take my fiio X1 look online for the max voltage output and measured several sine waves at different frequencies to check if at least one would give a proper result. then I checked with the tones that seemed to work into other DAPs, cellphones, dac/amps,  where I could get the max output voltage to confirm that it wasn't luck. once you know you can trust a method for your multimeter, it's all good.
 

 

  the problem with the spl meter is the accuracy and if you still have the same accuracy once you try to measure a sealed er4. a multimeter and the er4, that would make things a lot easier. you set your output to 200mV with a test tone of known amplitude(if the signal is at -6db, it means the voltage you read is half the FS voltage on that volume level). and with a little faith that your multimeter can deal with it(usually cheap multimeters are ok for low frequencies but I suggest trying a few on devices with know full scale voltage like a DAP or a cellphone).
anyway you end up set for 200mV, and voila! you can calibrate REW by entering the value in db you read on your certificate for 200mV ^_^.
 
I calibrated with another etymotic at the beginning, and the er4sr gave me withing 0.5db of the certificate when inserted at the same depth. so I'd say etymotic is fairly reliable as a starting point.

Interesting idea - thanks I think the ER4, ER4SR and ER4XR have different ratings, because ER4SR/XR are nominally 50 Ohm, but ER4S is/was 100 Ohm or thereabouts, right? Also, does Ety really rate their sensitivity based on mV alone? (And is this certificate the one that comes in the box when they paired the left/right buds?) Also, how can we know how much current it's going to absorb? Wouldn't that depend on the test tone, give that the Ety's impedances varies wildly (upward) after about 1 kHz? Do we need to use a low frequency to sit within the rated impedance range?

they most likely measure the efficiency the very way we want to do it with the veritas. they have a calibrated coupler, they send a 1khz tone into it at 0.1 or 0.2V or whatever, and measure the output with the calibrated coupler. even if it's expressed in db, what is measured is the voltage.
yes I said certificate in reference to the paper with measurements that comes with the er4. but really the general specs are fine too. for example it's written on mine that the drive level is 200mV and the IEMs give respectively 104.5 and 104.6db at 1khz.
the specs for the er4sr are 98db for 0.1V.   double the voltage is 6db louder, that's how it always is for all analogous audio signal. but if in doubt you can always jump there to avoid having to calculate it yourself http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-gainloss.htm 
so 98db with 0.1V means 98+6=104db into 0.2V we're 0.5db wrong and I think we can survive that magnitude of error ^_^.
 
I'm not sure I get the rest of the questions. if you have a multimeter you can check current whenever you like with any frequency. the accuracy might be given in the specs of the multimeter. but a little very serious advice for those who aren't too familiar with multimeters, the current settings are where you can blow the fuse! it's fairly hard to mess up with voltage and kind of impossible to mess up with resistance. but it's easy to mess up with current measurements, so always care about the setting and check that you're not on current next time you're using the multimeter. I always set it back to voltage and move the probe before turning it off, because I'm paranoid and I don't trust myself

and yes different test tone frequency equal different current frequency and different interaction with the IEM. but I really was talking about using lower frequencies and the multimeter just to make sure we get the right voltage calibration. once we move on to using the veritas, the frequency response isn't properly calibrated so there will be some matter of guessing anyway based on the FR of the IEM. nothing is perfect, and it's even less perfect when like me you go for cheap gear