How are people measuring their own room noise?
Xbox One (Durango) Technical hardware investigation
- Thread starter Love_In_Rio
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I have an app on my phone that measures many things, including ambient sound, light and temperature. I was actually surprised by how accurate it seems to be. I've compared the numbers it gives me to some actual test equipment I have at work.
I wouldn't have thought an app could be relied on without calibration. It's something I'd like to measure every once in a while, but I wouldn't spend money on decent equipment and that looks like £50+. If an app can be pretty reliable, that's a real plus.
Is that an iPhone? I expect on an iPhone it can be calibrated during development and uniform across all handsets. Android handsets will ahve any number of different microphones and circuits that could mess up accuracy.
Is that an iPhone? I expect on an iPhone it can be calibrated during development and uniform across all handsets. Android handsets will ahve any number of different microphones and circuits that could mess up accuracy.
You can buy sound meters online. Many of them only read down to 30-40db though, you have to spend a bit more to get more accurate ones. The one that I have for example will show my fridge and a console sounding about the same, even though clearly the fridge is noisier. I bought it to tune a/v receivers though at higher db, so it's crappy low end sensitivity didn't matter to me.
It's a Galaxy S4. I'm not saying I would rely on it for accuracy. But for personal use and getting an idea of things, at the price of free I was pleasantly surprised.
Here it is on Google Play.
It is a fair bit smaller than the Marantz slim receivers. I'm pretty sure I could take the cover off my receiver (not a slim Marantz) and throw an xb1 inside without removing anything.
I would choose an Indiana Jones or Jurassic Park console, especially the Jurassic Park console and would buy it if I could. :smile2:
On a different note, I read that the power consumption of the console when idle is around 20W, but I thought it was 60W. I think 20W sound a little more in line with the actual consumption.
(((interference)))
Veteran
Damn, I really want a good Jurassic Park game, some kind of action adventure/ survival/ shooter hybrid.
With next gen they'll have all the power they need to do fantastic looking dinosaurs and jungle environments.
With next gen they'll have all the power they need to do fantastic looking dinosaurs and jungle environments.
MS bragged about the power and clock gating capabilities of their APU back at their hotchips (or whatever) presentation, yet both standby and idle power is pretty bad for both PS4 and xbone. It could very well be that this has not been a highly prioritized area (yet, hopefully) during software development, and improvements will come later on. Maybe.
loekf
Regular
MS bragged about the power and clock gating capabilities of their APU back at their hotchips (or whatever) presentation, yet both standby and idle power is pretty bad for both PS4 and xbone. It could very well be that this has not been a highly prioritized area (yet, hopefully) during software development, and improvements will come later on. Maybe.
Don't think there's a secondary CPU for standby mode like PS4 right ? This means they have to keep one of the x86 cores (or perhaps islands with 2 cores) alive in standby, probably at a very low clock. You could run code from ESRAM to prevent from refreshing the SDRAM. However, don't think it will be nice for leakage etc. so not really low power.
Are you referring to active clock gating or just power islands ? I didn't see the hotchips slides/presentation yet. The one for PS4 at the recent AMD confereence I saw online was very disappointing, not much more info than the marketing talk.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
I had a friend who was an acoustic engineer come over and help me with my media room. He has access to some fairly expensive measuring devices.
I'm was actually considering sound proofing the room as well, but he convinced me not to do that as if you make a room "too quiet" then you start to induce strange psychological effects due to lack of any ambient noise that your brain uses to determine what is in your surroundings. I believe the interview with the sound person that worked on Kinect 2 said some stuff about that as well.
Regards,
SB
Just tried it on four devices sat on my desk, with my new PC with stock Intel fan providing basically all the noise.
Asus TF101 - ~23 dB
Galaxy Ace - ~ 26 dB
Galaxy S3 Mini - ~28 dB
Galaxy Note 10.1 - ~7 dB with peaks to 14
That's with no device calibration, but as you have to set the device calibration manually to a setting of your own choosing (set it so it records a quiet room as 25-30 dB), it's really not much use except for relative noise against a reference of your own choosing.
Okay. I don't think I'd trust anything other than fairly expensive gear, which is why I won't invest myself. I don't think cheap devices can be relied upon. You'll have to get him to do some XB1 (and PS4 if you can!) readings.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Yup, I had tried in the past with consumer db measuring devices, but none of them are able to go below 40-ish db in most cases. Some can get into the 30's but I don't trust their accuracy.
I'd love to have him test that, but we live in different parts of the world now and he isn't a gamer. Perhaps I'll have to take a vacation to visit him and bring a couple consoles along.
I'll be able to check it out first hand later today when my friend picks up his multiple Xbox Ones (guy is crazy
). If I'm suitably impressed by the living room experience, I may be coming home with one (buying one of his extras) that I can then subjectively test in my room. But, at 500 USD, it needs to REALLY wow me, and I'm not sure it'll do that.Regards,
SB
I am pretty sure microphones, just like speakers, have an ideal working range or frequencies where they are more or less accurate. I think smartphones running sound pressure apps might be good enough above a certain threshold (over 50+dB perhaps) using frequencies within a certain range. They are not able for example to accurately messure subsonic waves (subwoofers), so I think the accuracy of your device also varies depending on what you are messuring. E.g. fequencies in the normal talking band might be more accurate to messure across a wide array of phones than ambient noises or noises of fans etc.
loekf
Regular
After looking at:
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Xbox+One+Teardown/19718
can someone explain why the XB1 has a:
Marvell Avastar 88W8897 2x2 MIMO Wi-Fi Combination Radio Chip Supports 802.11ac, NFC, Bluetooth and Wireless Display
and
Marvell Avastar 88W8782U WLAN SOC w/USB 2.0 Interface Support
First IC does 802.11ac, NFC, BT and Miracast and has USB 2.0 i/f
2nd IC does 802.11a/b/g/n
I can't imagine you take a comb-SoC for just BT to the controllers. From the tear-down looks like there's single USB 2.0 wire going to the wireless module having the two Marvell ICs inside. Maybe they might enabled 802.11ac in the near future ??? However, not sure about the antenna design in that tiny module. Further more, what about wireless display support ? Can't imagine that's possible over a USB 2.0 i/f .... 1080p, 30 fps, uncompressed YUV 4:2:0, 12-bits, plus some PCM audio exceeds the bandwidth...
(in the iFixed pictures there's clearly an USB cable going from the module to the motherboard)
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Xbox+One+Teardown/19718
can someone explain why the XB1 has a:
Marvell Avastar 88W8897 2x2 MIMO Wi-Fi Combination Radio Chip Supports 802.11ac, NFC, Bluetooth and Wireless Display
and
Marvell Avastar 88W8782U WLAN SOC w/USB 2.0 Interface Support
First IC does 802.11ac, NFC, BT and Miracast and has USB 2.0 i/f
2nd IC does 802.11a/b/g/n
I can't imagine you take a comb-SoC for just BT to the controllers. From the tear-down looks like there's single USB 2.0 wire going to the wireless module having the two Marvell ICs inside. Maybe they might enabled 802.11ac in the near future ??? However, not sure about the antenna design in that tiny module. Further more, what about wireless display support ? Can't imagine that's possible over a USB 2.0 i/f .... 1080p, 30 fps, uncompressed YUV 4:2:0, 12-bits, plus some PCM audio exceeds the bandwidth...
(in the iFixed pictures there's clearly an USB cable going from the module to the motherboard)
Silent_Buddha
Legend
One of the Wifi IC's is just for the controllers. The other is for everything else.
Regards,
SB
I guess this little chip is responsible for 'Xbox on'?
If they're correct, that would be 'yet another' ARM processor. (PS4 has 2, the DS4 has 1 (haven't seen an xb1 controller teardown yet), and I suspect there's decent odds on something ARM-based in the cameras).
If they're correct, that would be 'yet another' ARM processor. (PS4 has 2, the DS4 has 1 (haven't seen an xb1 controller teardown yet), and I suspect there's decent odds on something ARM-based in the cameras).
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I wouldn't trust anything except a real one inch measurement microphone in a makeshift anechoic chamber. But it's a bit stupid because I don't live in an anechoic chamber.
If a very quiet home theater room is in the 20's, who cares about measurements as long as it's not noticeable from the couch? If the console was on my desk in front of me, it would be a very different discussion.
I classify everything as:
- can't hear it
- hear it only if I concentrate on it
- hear it enough it's annoying
If a very quiet home theater room is in the 20's, who cares about measurements as long as it's not noticeable from the couch? If the console was on my desk in front of me, it would be a very different discussion.
I classify everything as:
- can't hear it
- hear it only if I concentrate on it
- hear it enough it's annoying
According to MS...
Tommy McClain
http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/connected
http://news.xbox.com/2013/08/xbox-one-unboxing
Tommy McClain
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