VU Meters

[DuncanS]

I was sitting here letting the Xmas food settle and musing on making a box with VU meters to display the surround signal levels. Why you may ask, the answer is simple .............madness!

Anyway they are not cheap, but they do look real pretty

SIFAM AUDIO LEVEL METERS - Canford

............ now if the Involve Surround Pre-amp has an LCD screen that emulates the look of the rectangular ones, I'm going to have to buy one!

 

[DuncanS]

... and then I found this which will work with a USB interface, but not as pretty!
TC ELECTRONIC CLARITY M AUDIO METER Stereo and 5.1 metering, RTA, loudness radar, desktop (canford.co.uk)

 

[J. PUPSTER]

I was sitting here letting the Xmas food settle and musing on making a box with VU meters to display the surround signal levels. Why you may ask, the answer is simple .............madness!

Anyway they are not cheap, but they do look real pretty

SIFAM AUDIO LEVEL METERS - Canford

............ now if the Involve Surround Pre-amp has an LCD screen that emulates the look of the rectangular ones, I'm going to have to buy one!

I don't know Dunc., these look a little "Thick/Course" to me; I prefer older more refined looking meters, like what was on the old Reel to Reel decks

 

[Sonik Wiz]

I don't know Dunc., these look a little "Thick/Course" to me; I prefer older more refined looking meters, like what was on the old Reel to Reel decks

I think they look pretty nice but some of them look exactly like ones on Ebay for much less. I've toyed with the idea of a VU meter box but the only place it could go is where my Panasonic Quad Scope is. Dilemma.

 

[Doug G.]

My Heathkit quad amps have built-in VU meters, so I got that going for me, which is nice. I get to watch 8 meters dancing around when all four pair of Advents are producing.

Doug

 

[DuncanS]

I don't know Dunc., these look a little "Thick/Course" to me; I prefer older more refined looking meters, like what was on the old Reel to Reel decks

I do as well, like on my Akai stereo R-to-Rs, but even finding a moving coil meter is rare these days, too expensive. I'd quite like 5 (no sub!) of the ones found on the Technics Amps

 

[marpow]

I have meters on my amps and they are very helpful to my listening experience, overall.
They are most helpful of course in the surround experience.
What they do for me is to verify what I think I am hearing. Sometimes on 5.1 recordings I notice the center channel is barely alive, and I will turn off the center, or maybe I notice the rears need a little bump up.
What I have noticed since going to Atmos is the new amp for those 4 speakers with meters have actually been a distraction, because i am constatntly looking at them. The Atmos signal is, most of the time not a very strong signal, and when everything is cranked and there is that ambient Atmos in height speakers it is really hard to tell how active they are without the meters.
Mostly the meters are helpful, but sometimes a distraction.
What I ultimately want for my listening experience is just to sit and not care about anything except the music, hard for gear heads like me.
Good subject.

 

[Sonik Wiz]

I have meters on my amps and they are very helpful to my listening experience, overall.
They are most helpful of course in the surround experience.
What they do for me is to verify what I think I am hearing. Sometimes on 5.1 recordings I notice the center channel is barely alive, and I will turn off the center, or maybe I notice the rears need a little bump up.
What I have noticed since going to Atmos is the new amp for those 4 speakers with meters have actually been a distraction, because i am constatntly looking at them. The Atmos signal is, most of the time not a very strong signal, and when everything is cranked and there is that ambient Atmos in height speakers it is really hard to tell how active they are without the meters.
Mostly the meters are helpful, but sometimes a distraction.
What I ultimately want for my listening experience is just to sit and not care about anything except the music, hard for gear heads like me.
Good subject.

Meters are cool, who knows why us tech heads like 'em so much. But how helpful they are & what they actually indicate is a different story. For example in classic quad receivers they are usually connected to speaker output so it indicates volume level & balance together. To see finer low level details ya gotta turn it up loud (yes I know they usually have a x1 or x10 setting). But it does show what you're hearing.

If you put it in the signal chain earlier you don't need to crank the volume so much to see meter movement. For myself, as an example, I would probably put a meter box between the outputs on my Zektor switcher & then to the analog inputs on my Anthem pre-pro. I have extensively tested the SM v2 & know exactly how to set controls for maximum accuracy. If I leave those knobs alone and say I want a bit more rear level, I would do that on the Anthem. Then the meters would not be showing me what is really being output to speakers.

Mac meters are huge & I see why they would catch your attention. My gear is to the left of left front speakers built into a wall and to the side. Nothing is directly in front of me. So the lights & stuff is not very distracting.

 

[Doug G.]

Those ones on the Technics are beautiful.

As Sonik Wiz stated, meters are most desired in quad setups to balance the outputs. Get a mono signal in there and adjust the volume/balance controls for equal indication on the meters, assuming the meters are in the output circuits and your speakers are the same ones in each channel. You then know the channels are balanced and any difference in channel output from then on is due to source material.

Doug

 

[DuncanS]

I feel watching the meters is akin to watching a real log/coal fire, kind of mesmerising, which is another reason I like Reel-to-Reels along with 'gentle' rotation of the reels

 

[Doug G.]

Yup and watching a record go 'round, especially the ones with a horizontal band going across the middle like the old Decca rainbow ones here in the States, fascinated by the incredible sounds coming off that rotating disc.

Doug

 

[zeerround]

For unbalanced line level, these were $16.50 US on amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071K8P8MX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I have 7 double sided foam taped to a piece of smoke colored plexiglass (to make 14 channels)

I also bought, but haven't added, these line level amps:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XAGSZSK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
So the meters would operate at lower listening levels.

 

[DuncanS]

For unbalanced line level, these were $16.50 US on amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071K8P8MX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I have 7 double sided foam taped to a piece of smoke colored plexiglass (to make 14 channels)

I also bought, but haven't added, these line level amps:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XAGSZSK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
So the meters would operate at lower listening levels.

The line level amps are actually 3W per channel for driving speakers. The LED VU meters blurb doesn't give any indication what full scale voltage is required, so driving them with the amps may make no difference, or might overdrive them. You'll probably need something with variable gain to match the input to full scale on the meter.

 

[DuncanS]

Yup and watching a record go 'round, especially the ones with a horizontal band going across the middle like the old Decca rainbow ones here in the States, fascinated by the incredible sounds coming off that rotating disc.

Doug

That made me think of the old Vertigo label with the black & white spiral, that did give you vertigo after a while!

 

[Doug G.]

Hehe, "That music is SO good, it makes me dizzy!"



Doug

 

[Sonik Wiz]

For unbalanced line level, these were $16.50 US on amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071K8P8MX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I have 7 double sided foam taped to a piece of smoke colored plexiglass (to make 14 channels)

I also bought, but haven't added, these line level amps:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XAGSZSK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
So the meters would operate at lower listening levels.

That sounds pretty cool! Do you have a pic? Or at least describe the layout congiguration of the units.

 

[zeerround]

That sounds pretty cool! Do you have a pic? Or at least describe the layout congiguration of the units.

Really just all held together with 3M foam tape:

Hard to get a pic without reflection on the plastic.

 

[furui_suterioo]

Here's one from China:
1pc VU Meter DB Level Header Audio Preamp Power Amplifier Chassis TN-90A | eBay

I want to get this just for fun:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/274621403284

 

[AYanguas]

DIY VUMeters BOX Finished

I finally finished my DIY VUMeter Box for the 13 channels of the Denon 8500. Taking the signals from the pre-outs. COVID times and retirement has enabled it.

I like these Chinese VUmeters. They are programable with different displays modes and different settings,

I had to amplify the voltage level from the pre-outs. I tried initially with the small 3W amps mentioned some posts above, but they generated much noise and was not easy to display anything. Saturated Full bar LEDs nearly all the time.

So, I decided to build some voltage level amps using standard LM324 Op-Amps. With Potentiometers to have a variable Gain from 20 to 80.

Also, I put a spare WI-FI controlled switches, from my previous Speaker Switch Box, to enable ON/OFF with Alexa. I didn’t find a suitable Box, so I ended up making it myself with cardboard and wood.

I have had a lot of fun and I have dusted off my skills of electronics and DIY manual works.

Once I calibrated the displays, to show more or less the same amount of LEDs for the same amount of signal level, I Did see graphically with my eyes all the theory I already knew:

- With DTS, surround backs are replicates from surrounds. The same pattern is followed by both VUMeters. But if an upmixer is engaged with DTS, then different content is send to the surround backs.
- Neural:X sends more content level to the Heights than DSU.
- With DSU 'Center Spread', the Fronts display got higher and Central smaller, and viceversa.
- Auromatic upmixer makes the same patterns to the Heights as its corresponding floor level speakers. And little content to Central High and VOG.

Here you have some pictures of the final assembling stages. At the end below, a link to a video showing how it looks. The VUMeter LEDs are in a central display mode, but they can be programmed also as standard bars growing from below, with or without peaks, moving peaks, etc.

If anyone is interested in the design details, I'm still compiling all paper notes, and designs spread on Word and Excel files to a Final Document. I will share it if anyone is interested.

This is the Link to the Video. You have to click it and enable there the sound to fully see it:

 

[Sonik Wiz]

Pretty impressive. I like! Extra cool that you know how to match this to Alexa voice control. Maybe I didn't read close enough but what is the numeric digital read out on the right side? Haha, I also have used the "wooden cleat" construction method but I'm more of a foam core guy. Compared to simple quad, ATMOS displays are whole next level in project complexity. The only similar one I've seen similar on the forum is by Zeeround, see #17.

Your Youtube video has no motion... it is a series of still photos, yes?