Inside a £15,000 Rhode & Schwartz UPV Audio Analyzer.

[Artesia]

Sorry folks, no pictures inside this one.. as im kindly respecting the calibration sticker on this borrowed unit - however generous ventilation has provided ample opportunity to pry at alot of the workings ;)

http://www2.rohde-schwarz.com/product/UPV.html

This Unit is a Professional R&D tool used in numerous development labs in the audio industry; so given the opportunity to play with one - i was curious as to what components where declared fit to test everything else out there.

the unit is a low noise, low distortion signal source/generator & digital analyser built into one ..erm convenient box. the digital wares consist of a mish mash of hardware melded with a pc

pc based on a celeron 1.5ghz processor & 433mhz 1gb of ram. the storage tools are a 20gb fujitsu sata hard drive (hmm.. i still think they could of gone for a better make ;) ), theres a dvd writer, usb ports, network & the ability to connect an external second monitor - oh and a keyboard + mouse.

yes, it is a computer incognito, it even runs windows xp embedded, and the analyser program is a windows based app (which will run on any pc oddly enough, in a 'demo' mode).

the hardware is specified for upto 195khz signal generation bandwidth & 250khz fft signal analysis.

the noise floor is supposedly -140db. however even when correctly terminated i observed what would seem to indicate one of -120db.

dynamic range is specified at 170db.

the test features are numerous, see website for full details; the signal generation options cover most waveforms & can play back a digitised source. the anayser is principally aimed at fft analysis, but also serves as an oscilloscope, thd analyser, phase & delay measurer.

sadly, thats not a touch screen - however it does have an impressively thick wedge of glass in front of it & oscilloscope like construction throughout.

frankly the melding of the software and hardware is pretty poorly conceived. its deeply frustrating to use with its inbuilt controls alone.. it has the feel of an interface which was initially designed for a pc user & roughly hashed around to fit into a vaguely stand alone box like interface. Ultimately you find yourself quickly reaching for a usb mouse to avoid some of the painful gui procedures. Also the program gui seems to be set well in the mid 90's, it feels clunky & could be greatly improved ..and i expect in that respect - sales within the sector would improve too ;)

heres a quick run-down of the majority of the chips and parts observed where i could:

(I, was in some cases quite surprised.)

Power supply for everything is an encapsulated switch mode with a large external linear regulator bank supplying the following voltages:

{outputs organised into two sepperate banks with labels ending in 'a' and 'g' respectively.}

*    + & - 15v

*    + & - 20v

*    + 5v

Curious Devices:

* Altera Apex - Programmable Logic Device. A PLD with goodies like a pci interface, memory, PLL & some widget for storing and protecting 'intellectual property' ..dongle anyone ? :)

http://www.altera.com/products/devices/apex/apx-index.html

Digital I/O:

* Analog Devices - ad811 (video opamp).

http://www.analog.com/static/imported-files/data_sheets/AD811.pdf

Analog I/O Front end:

* Analog Devices - ad8610a (dual j-fet opamp)

http://www.analog.com/static/imported-files/data_sheets/AD8610_8620.pdf

* TI - ne5534a (single, old as the hills, pretty darned good opamp - HA ! ...LOTS of them ;) )

http://www.ti.com/lit/gpn/ne5534a

* LM339 (standard opamp, afew of them)

http://www.national.com/ds.cgi/LM/LM139.pdf

* linear technology's - LT1763 (Low noise, 500ma linear regulators - plenty of them)

http://www.linear.com/pc/downloadDocument.do?navId=H0,C1,C1010,C1778,C1764,P1778,D3903

* Axicom 5v relays (Lots of them - machine makes curious clatters when doing certain things)

* op2750 (burr brown OPA ???)

* op2134 (opamp, dual)

http://www.ti.com/lit/gpn/opa2134

Audio Back End:

* Analog Devices - AD 7723bsz ((2x) - 16bit (erm.. yep !) 1.2MSPS, single channel, sigma delta ADC 90db snr)

http://www.analog.com/static/imported-files/data_sheets/AD7723.pdf

{puzzling, very puzzling}

* No sign of DAC, however a rather inconspicuous chip not too far away had a sizeable heatsink on it & around 24 pins ..probably the culprit, tho unfortunately no way of grabbing details rn.

* more ne5534a, tons of lt1763.

* nxp - 74lvc4245a (3.3v>5v logic level converters)

http://www.standardics.nxp.com/products/levelshifters/alvc164245a/

* lvt3234 (???)

* analog devices - ad797b (single opamp)

http://www.dscc.dla.mil/downloads/milspec/smd/93133.pdf

No gold enshrined virgin moth antennae or snake oil ;)

Surprised ? :)

Fin. :)

[Ashiman]

audio precision also has 5534, no probs, 20k usd german Mbl (?) preamp has 5534+ad797 as well , apparently you can trim distortion out and there s a trick of bypassing input output stage of 5534, looks fun.