LED or VU DB display meter

[in2deep]

Hey peeps,

Can any body recommend an accurate LED or VU display meter to suit a Urei 1620 setup? I am wanting a meter to review while recording to streamline the volume. I hear the "american audio active DBM" unit is not very accurate. Unit also needs to be 19" rack mountable. What do you think?

[Laurin]

http://www.dorrough.com/index.html

[DSA.audio]

Originally Posted by DSA.audio

http://www.wohler.com/Search.aspx?grpId=1&lineId=40

I admit to buying used.

[herbalpudding]

I use a vintage Furman VU-40 but have never used it for recording, only live metering.

[nitred]

The American Audio meter is plenty accurate if it's properly calibrated. It's suck if you go with the "looks about right" method.

BTW- You can buy Dorroughs pretty cheap on Ebay.

[in2deep]

Thanks for all your responses guys.

In the end I decided to go with the American Audio for a two reasons...

1. Has XLR/RCA input and outputs
2. It's as cheap as buying five new 12" records

Just hope it's not as sensitive on the adjustments dials as the "Technical Pro db-B28" unit is. This unit is unusable in my opinion.

[Pete54]

What is the best way to calibrate the American Audio db meter?

[in2deep]

I think the best way to calibrate the unit is to run a signal into a recoding device and compare the signal going in there with the LED meter. If that makes sense?!

[DSA.audio]

Originally Posted by Pete54

What is the best way to calibrate the American Audio db meter?

I would say, determine the optimum input levels on your recording device,
and set the meters leds to provide visual indication when approaching the level that would overload your recording device...

which is basically the same as the advice from in2deep above

[Richi]

They chose an odd scale for this unit, it looks more like a digital scale with 0dBFS being the top. Most analogue VU meters will go beyond 0dB, so not sure what this unit is doing.

The normal procedure for calibrating a meter is to use a reference voltage, the reference would usually be a tone of say 1khz and with a voltage of 0.775v. You would then measure the voltage at the output and trim the VU meter accordingly.