ProAudio Review - December 2008 - (Page 48)

live review by Mike Rivers NTI Digirator DR2 The DR2 is a handy digital testing gadget that is easy to use and highly portable. The Digirator DR2 is the latest Minstrument from NTI, the audio test and measurement company headquartered in Liechtenstein. The Minstrument product line consists of a series of separate test generators and signal analyzers spanning a wide range of digital, analog, and acoustical tests. These are lab-grade instruments, but are all compact, battery-powered (three AA cells), and rugged enough for field troubleshooting or system testing. The DR2 provides a comprehensive range of audio test signals as well as specialized test sequences for verification and adjustment of Dolby Digital, Dolby E, ProLogic, and DTS surround installations. Features The DR2 follows the form factor of NTI’s second-generation Minstruments— a palm-sized unit with LCD, scroll wheel and Enter button, a set of quick-access buttons for Level, Frequency, and Waveform selections, a Power button that doubles as a display backlight switch, and a Mute button. Finally, there’s a button to set the resolution of the scroll wheel: 0.1 or 1 dB steps for level and frequency steps of 1/3, 1/6, 1/12 octave or 1 least significant digit. The case fits comfortably in one hand, and a soft, shockresistant jacket is provided, as well as a hand strap. An RCA jack provides a transformerisolated 75-ohm S/PDIF or AES3-id (with the supplied RCA-BNC adapter) output. A male XLR supplies 110-ohm balanced AES/EBU or unbalanced AES3 with the supplied XLR-BNC adapter. A TOSLink optical output provides either stereo S/PDIF optical or an 8-channel ADAT Optical output. The normal output is stereo (two channels) but either channel can be switched off, or the polarity of one channel can be inverted with respect to the other. XLR and RCA outputs span the full sample rate range from 32 to 192 kHz. The S/PDIF optical output goes to 96 kHz, though the ADAT output operates only at 44.1 and 48 kHz. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the ADAT output can be used to test four channels of a 2X sample rate S/mux input. The optical output can be switched off, providing a bit of additional battery life. A female XLR serves as a sync input should it be necessary or desired to synchronize the Digirator’s output with house sync. Normally the DR2’s internal low-jitter clock provides the data clock reference, but when a suitable signal is connected to the Sync Input, it is automatically detected, the Impedance menu pops up allowing you to select 75-ohm or 110-ohm termination or bridging, and the sync signal can then be selected as the clock source for the output data stream. Sync can be word clock, PAL or NTSC video black burst, DARS (AES3 without the audio) or an AES/EBU or coax S/PDIF audio stream. While the DR2 is primarily a signal generator, it is also capable of verifying a channel or device under test for bit-accurate transmission as well as throughput delay (latency). The sync input connec- tor doubles as the input for Transparency and I/O Delay testing. Firmware updates and audio test file loading and management are via a USB port. The Digirator generates a variety of test signals including sine, pink and white noise, stepped or continuous linear or logarithmic sweeps (called “chirp”), a burst for measuring throughput delay (latency) and a polarity test waveform which works in conjunction with the NTI analyzers. In addition, Dolby and DTS nonlinear (encoded and compressed) PCM multichannel test signals in a variety of formats are available, offering channel identification, pink noise, tones, and a polarity test for surround systems. The DL2 also functions as a WAV file player, allowing any waveform, test sequence, sound, or announcement that you can record to be output. Sound files, loaded via the USB port, are stored in folders in the DL2’s nonvolatile memory. Selecting the FILE menu presents a list of available sound files. Because the memory size is limited and the non-linear test Mike Rivers has a long list of engineering credits with the Smithsonian and is the author of the last Mackie HDR manual. 48 ProAudioReview | December 2008 www.proaudioreview.com http://www.proaudioreview.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of ProAudio Review - December 2008

ProAudio Review - December 2008 Contents Technically Speaking New Studio Products Opinion: Mastering Matters Review: BIAS Peak Pro XT 6 Review: Zaxcom Fusion ENG Mixer and Multitrack Recorder Review: Sound Devices 788T 8-Track Digital Audio Recorder Review: Universal Audio UAD-2 Solo DSP Accelerator Review: Chandler Limited Germanium Compressor Review: RME ADI-8 QS A/D-D/A Converter Feature: Converters and Clocks: Engineers on Their Choices New Live Products Opinion: From the Road Review: Yamaha IM8 Series Mixing Consoles Review: NTI Digirator DR2 Digital Audio Signal Generator Review: Sencore SoundPro SP495 Audio Consultant Test Set Single Slice

ProAudio Review - December 2008

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