Would you consider giving us the ability to use your device,
that we must admit have great specs and feature, with ASIO instead of being stick to the current Audio Analyser software you’re providing ?
I know someone already did this on a previous version of the QA40x.
I appreciate your effort in developing your own software, and i use it but lot of things are missing.
When you take a look at Digilent’s Waveform Software you’ll see that there is a long way to go.
So why not giving us the ability to have the best from the hardware while still developing you’re software ?
One exemple among other why i can use you’re hardware professionally :
Gen is bursting when analyser is running, so i must be in idle mode but now how can i measure ?
Hi @BAB30650, the barrier to using an ASIO driver is the attenuators and programmable gain stages. To effectively get the best quality out of the QA40x, you need to adjust the various gain stages on the fly. There are 4 output levels and 8 input levels. How would you propose to manage these setting with generic software? In other words, how would you adjust these settings in REW, for example?
And if Digilent software and hardware can already meet your needs, why not just use that?
For the burst mode measurement, it’s pretty easy to work around if you need to measure something like bluetooth or a compressor. What is you want to measure where the bursting gets in the way? The burst has a big benefit in that there’s a constant phase relationship that is known. In other words, the output/input relationship is precisely known down to the sample level.
Matt I keep hearing you say this but I don’t think you understand how ASIO works if you ask these questions because solving it is super easy if you fully implement the driver. Even if you use the half backed way of controlling the attenuates in the current driver it can work, though not ideally.
I will say I will not purchase a QA40x until ASIO is available for them and until you can supply a working ASIO driver for them I’ll stick to finding used QA401s (as I have had to do 3 times now) so this is pretty important to me and many people.
The problem with the current 401 ASIO driver is that the ASIO control panel that interacts with the driver was never written. The driver works, but not the control part. This is where in the driver assignment of most programs (like ARTA) one can access the device specific features. In the case of my current other unit I can control the pads, the impedance, phantom power, buffer size, etc here. In the case of the QA-40x this is where you would set the pads and attenuates as well as buffer size - I select Device Set up, Assign my other device ASIO and hit “control panel”. For the QA however this doesn’t work because it wasn’t written. This is even explained in the read me for the driver that it still needs to be written. The current work around, of course for the 401 is the text file where you set the one attenuator. This is a PITA but it works.
I get that writing an ASIO driver is a PITA and maybe not your core skill set, but there are features we need where your hardware is great but the software can’t yet do it. And this is where ARTA comes in. It also lets you sell your hardware for other precision test applications than just what you can do. The Digilent Waveforms and ARTA are two obvious examples to which there is no better hardware than you have, but they have features we use and want to continue to use in their software, but would rather use your hardware. since there software can work with ASIO the choice is obvious
Just for reference Digilent Waveform have a beta channel, they implement user request in a week or so and you are keeping explaining me senseless reasons why you’re using ONLY burst mode …
It is not a critic on your hardware, as explained by @HawkerAMpT the hardware have a great interest but i have to said the support is truly un-professional and un-commercial.
If writing ran ASIO driver with 12 buttons to select IO attenuation is out of your competence please stop taking me for a fool …
Instead of hearing peoples need you keep giving us senseless explanation.
Let’s try again :
IF for example i DONT want to measure a compressor i DONT want nothing fancy, just to calibrate a level on a console VU Meter please tell me how can i do that when gen bursting every second ? do you get that ?
You’re response : BURST is great for bluetooth and compressor WTF ?
I’m i talking to Chat GPT ?
Still Hoping one day an ASIO driver with 12 buttons.
I’m not sure if this discussion is going in the right direction. When you buy the QA40x you know that ASIO is not supported. I have not seen that @matt is advertising his products with ASIO drivers. It is meant to be used with the QA40x application.
I agree, ASIO would be nice and would open up options to use it with other applications. Maybe this could be commercially interesting since it would allow to sell some more units. On the other hand it increases the support effort, not only for maintaining the driver but also for people who reach out to Matt because they have issues with the 3rd party applications.
Many years back I used to work with AP S1 but could never afford it for my private audio projects. Now I have my QA402 which has probably a +60dB better TSF (tool satisfaction factor) than any sound card based audio measurement systems I have used over the last years. Not an S1 but very, very good.
My 2cts
@AVO I agree. This conversation seems to be taking a confrontational rather than helpful turn and and am sorry for my part in that. My point is to explain to Matt why this is important not be confrontational.
I think my point is we love the QA hardware, there is nothing like it in anything close to the price range. And a lot of us are sick of trying to make sound cards and USB audio interfaces work. We recognize Matt is only one person and can’t add or even anticipate every feature people need, especially for industrial or special use circumstances. And that is o.k. No one expects that. But there are some other pieces of software that we want to use, or are using with sub par interfaces and the product becomes more useful and can be sold to a wider audience if it could work with that. ASIO is the part to that.
NI and others have long established complex customizable test software that so many people use that we could never expect from QA. And there is a reason people love ARTA as well (it’s still more responsive than QA for real time tweaks and has some features I use that are not in QA). But the only decent interface for these other than sound cards now is the QA401, which is obsolete.
I don’t expect Matt so support me with other apps any more than that the driver does ASIO.
For me this is limiting enough that non only would I never have gotten a QA401 in the first place if it didn’t have ASIO, I’ve bought 3 and am sticking with that line for several reasons, one of which is that ASIO support adds enough value to me to be more important than the new features and performance of the newer products. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one.
Stop any measurements by pressing the run/stop button
Do File->New Settings
Press the IDLE button (under the run/stop button).
At this point, the outputs are generating 1 kHz at -10 dBV. This is continuous. You should be able to confirm 316 mVrms on a DVM.
Now, you can use the control+up arrow or control+down arrow to change the amplitude (or open the generator settings, or do control+1 to open the amplitude quick entry).
And then, you can look at your VU meters and see if they are doing what is expected given the level you are generating.
The IDLE button will generate a continuous tone anytime you are not making a measurement. If IDLE is active and you start making measurements, it will revert to the bursting. You’ll also see IDLE text in the lower left when it’s active.
@VAR, I recall you routinely check the power meters on the McIntosh MC amps in your vids. Are you using the IDLE tone generation? Or some other method altogether?
Yes, I use the idle tone generation when checking power meters (or LED’s as may be the case). Before I go to the Idle mode I make sure that the QA40x is reading the power I am wanting to check the calibration at. The frequency is not always 1khz, and sometimes a voltage across an 8 load is specified.
The QA403 comes with an expansion socket that gives access to the IC2 bus. Would it be feasible to get low-level access to the hardware using that and write your own ASIO driver/open-source? Admittedly some hardware will be needed, you can’t just connect that to your PC and expect it to understand.
That is Sad, was long searching for an AD/DA only for Analogue Measurments with ARTA or REW and would buy the 403 Analyzer but than luklikly i read that there are no ASIO Driver to use it with other Software and so on i was searching for an other Device with SABRE DACS AD/DA. Also i need et least an TOSLINK Digital Out to feed in a DSP Aktivcrossover for measurements!
At least i did buy the MOTU Superlite MK5 even i didnt need so much in and outs but the AD / DA Performance Price Ratio was very atraktiv for me (RME was much to expensive) and it works on Linux also i guess you realy need to think about Asio Drivers for the 403 Analyser, i gues you could sell some more of them . Even only as a nice AD/DA DAC USB Interface
You’ll be pleased to learn that I just released a new version of ASIO401 with support for the QA403 and QA402, in addition to the QA401. Enjoy! If you encounter any problems, feel free to file an issue.
Yes, I see you found it 8 hours after I released it no less, good job. Ironically I posted on this thread right away to spread the good news, but my post above yours ended up stuck in a moderation queue because it was autoflagged as spam You ended up beating me to it!
Hi @edechamps. Yes, I found it trying to figure out what you had written in the post! Anyway, congratulations, you did a great job and many here will be happy with what you did and made available to everyone. Thank you
Thanks a lot! I could not imagine I could use the QA403 with other software, I tested it with Systune and attached some graphs. Loop thru the 403 and using the QA472 with a measurement mic.
You made my Day dude ! Like i wrote before i will buy the Analyzer if an Asio Driver is there and now the Day was there!
After i read this and the Money was there i ordered this day an:
QuantAsylum QA461 Transducer Driver
QuantAsylum QA403 Audio Analyzer
QuantAsylum QA472 Low Noise Mic
@ Saelig
BTW
I also have two Motu UL but i use them for my CamillaDSP Aktiv Surround Project so i need something better for good Audio Measurement’s!!
Thank You a lot for youre good Job.
Cant Understand why Quantum dont want to build up an deacend ASIO GUI. I bet the would sell much more Devices by doing it
ASIO is not a thing on Mac OS, so that won’t help I’m afraid. And even if it was, ASIO401 is based on WinUSB so definitely woudn’t work on Mac without some major changes.
Thought I would share my experience here: Last night, I watched a youtube video, showing that there is an ASIO driver for the QA403. Today, I have been writing simple Matlab code that uses the ASIO driver, and found that the input and output attenuator settings file is read each time I run the code. That means that it’s possible to update the attenuator settings from Matlab (update the file contents as needed from matlab) and run a measurement. I’m pretty excited about these possibilities and thought it deserves sharing. Matlab code below - just a quick sketch, but I think it demonstrates the power of this - hope others find it usefull…
i guess you realy need to think about Asio Drivers for the 403 Analyser, i gues you could sell some more of them . Even only as a nice AD/DA DAC USB Interface 
8 hours after I released it no less, good job. Ironically I posted on this thread right away to spread the good news, but my post above yours ended up stuck in a moderation queue because it was autoflagged as spam 
You ended up beating me to it!
