Phono + Test Record + Preamp

1

I have an older QA400 on a laptop running XP:) Thanks in advance for any responses in support of older gear. Was going to buy a new one around pandemic but supply chain at the time:/
I absolutely love the product. Used it for quite a few diy preamps and amps- fantastic.

Anyway, now I’m into vinyl. I have an older Sansui table into a Parks Audio Waxwing preamp.

I want to get a sense for the frequency response, balance, and distortion of the turntable rig itself as measured at the output of the preamp. So, I will buy a test record.

I am not trying to measure the cartridge directly, nor am I trying to measure the preamp in isolation. I see there are other threads that address this.

Since, I am using a test record as the source and measuring at the output of the preamp, it is already RIAA corrected.

How do I use the Quantasylum using a test record?

2

Good question! I don’t know QA400 software, so I refer to the last version of product.
If you aim to measure the cartridge+phono FR, you can use a test record with a sinusoidal sweep: unfortunately QA403 doesn’t have an HOLD MAX feature, as far as I know, so no way to do it with a sweep. Then you could use a Pink Noise track to do the FR: I tried it, but it’s not a very detailed measure, besides you should need to compensate for the power density decay, typical of this type of noise, to get a flat response.
In the end, I don’t use QA403 to do the job.