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Author Topic: Emulating a black box - how would you go about this?  (Read 10161 times)

Riley Casey

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Emulating a black box - how would you go about this?
« on: August 10, 2012, 10:38:43 AM »

I have a set of DSP settings that have been provided by a manufacturer as blind settings.  These are loaded into the specified brand and model of DSP unit as a complete, largely locked file with no settings adjustable or visible aside from the high pass filter.  I want to create a back up to the back up DSP ( I already have a back up unit for this DSP) in a different model of DSP.  The settings will be only an approximation as while they are the same brand of processor they are different models. Does anyone have a suggestion on a systematic way to approach this endeavor? 

I have attached a screen shot of transfer function of the original DSP with green trace being a live curve of the low band of the DSP in which I am building a the back up settings. Blue is the low band, yellow the mid band and red the high band.  The green active device trace does not yet have  any EQ applied, only the high and low pass filters.  By definition this is a complete shot in the dark as to everything from filter points & topologies to EQ slopes and frequencies so if anyone has a suggestion as to a good starting point I'd love to hear it.

John Roberts {JR}

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Re: Emulating a black box - how would you go about this?
« Reply #1 on: August 10, 2012, 11:52:21 AM »

While low tech I would consider a simple null test, or subtracting one from the other. There may be a need to add some small delay to one or the other, but null them out with wide band noise, and you should be there...  You can listen to the null or measure it, or both.

JR

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Rasmus Rosenberg

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Re: Emulating a black box - how would you go about this?
« Reply #2 on: August 10, 2012, 01:10:17 PM »

I have a set of DSP settings that have been provided by a manufacturer as blind settings.  These are loaded into the specified brand and model of DSP unit as a complete, largely locked file with no settings adjustable or visible aside from the high pass filter.  I want to create a back up to the back up DSP ( I already have a back up unit for this DSP) in a different model of DSP.  The settings will be only an approximation as while they are the same brand of processor they are different models. Does anyone have a suggestion on a systematic way to approach this endeavor? 

I have attached a screen shot of transfer function of the original DSP with green trace being a live curve of the low band of the DSP in which I am building a the back up settings. Blue is the low band, yellow the mid band and red the high band.  The green active device trace does not yet have  any EQ applied, only the high and low pass filters.  By definition this is a complete shot in the dark as to everything from filter points & topologies to EQ slopes and frequencies so if anyone has a suggestion as to a good starting point I'd love to hear it.

Hey Riley,
What is the original processor? and can't the manufacture help you? (most are really forthcoming, they will rather give the parameters or presets than have people "roll" there own) (And some of us might be able to make you a preset for you, depending on gear ... shhh...;)
If you have acess to a measurement program you can get very close by measureing and "repainting" the TF as I think your saying you will try to do. Depending on platform there will however most likely be some compromises to how things relate/transfer, so listning test is crucial too, and not for the faint hearted :) As for approach I like to start from the HF and then down And make sure you zoom in and out to make the slopes visible, watch for out of band EQ and all pass filters etc. Both the magnitude and phase trace should match and the final preset should have the same latency as the other processor so you can swap it with out worries.
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Ivan Beaver

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Re: Emulating a black box - how would you go about this?
« Reply #3 on: August 10, 2012, 07:55:26 PM »

It looks like you didn't do a good job of setting the receive delay.  That is why the phase is so wrapped.

Since you have the transfer function of each band-also measure the delay.

Now you have something that you can 'start to copy".

It depends if there are any "special filters" that may be a bit hard to copy.  This would show up in your phase response curves.

Once you get the two curves to overlap-you should have it.

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Ivan Beaver
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Arthur Skudra

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Re: Emulating a black box - how would you go about this?
« Reply #4 on: August 10, 2012, 08:28:22 PM »

It looks like you didn't do a good job of setting the receive delay.  That is why the phase is so wrapped.
With the exception of the green trace, it looks like he set the receive delay correctly for each of the passbands.  Nevertheless, he does need to figure out what the time delay is for each passband so that he can replicate that as well in his settings.
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Ivan Beaver

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Re: Emulating a black box - how would you go about this?
« Reply #5 on: August 10, 2012, 09:19:28 PM »

With the exception of the green trace, it looks like he set the receive delay correctly for each of the passbands.  Nevertheless, he does need to figure out what the time delay is for each passband so that he can replicate that as well in his settings.
I would argue that the blue and yellow traces are still a "bit early".  But they could be "close enough" as to be usable.

In a "perfect world" the phase should "fall" along with the top end of the repsonse of the passband-not tilt upwards-but the little tilt shown could be "workable"..
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Riley Casey

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Re: Emulating a black box - how would you go about this?
« Reply #6 on: August 10, 2012, 10:44:26 PM »

Thanks for all the observations thus far particularly Ivan for calling out my flakiness in posting an uncorrected live trace.  I pulled a screen shot as soon as I thought to ask for suggestions without setting the delay first on the new processor.  In any case the high and mid bands seem to be falling into place even using the lower cost DSP unit so while the speaker maker and the DSP maker both stonewall the very idea ( quite properly ) of trying to build settings designed for a very capable DSP product into a low end unit it seems like its not out of the question for an emergency backup.  The narrow band notches in the phase trace are a bit odd though.  Not sure what to attribute those to.  Of course the brick wall is the number of filters available and in this case the low end unit ran out of filters at least one short of those required for the low pass band quite aside from not being able to match up the phase trace nearly as well as the mid & high bands.  I'm still working on that but this is the mid & high comparison to date.  Red & Yellow are the 366 and pink and orange are the 336. 

Haven't listened to anything yet though. ::)
« Last Edit: August 10, 2012, 10:46:10 PM by Riley Casey »
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Tim McCulloch

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Re: Emulating a black box - how would you go about this?
« Reply #7 on: August 13, 2012, 02:14:15 PM »

Thanks for all the observations thus far particularly Ivan for calling out my flakiness in posting an uncorrected live trace.  I pulled a screen shot as soon as I thought to ask for suggestions without setting the delay first on the new processor.  In any case the high and mid bands seem to be falling into place even using the lower cost DSP unit so while the speaker maker and the DSP maker both stonewall the very idea ( quite properly ) of trying to build settings designed for a very capable DSP product into a low end unit it seems like its not out of the question for an emergency backup.  The narrow band notches in the phase trace are a bit odd though.  Not sure what to attribute those to.  Of course the brick wall is the number of filters available and in this case the low end unit ran out of filters at least one short of those required for the low pass band quite aside from not being able to match up the phase trace nearly as well as the mid & high bands.  I'm still working on that but this is the mid & high comparison to date.  Red & Yellow are the 366 and pink and orange are the 336. 

Haven't listened to anything yet though. ::)

The magnitude trace looks a lot like the VerTec v4 4889 midrange processing....  am I close?
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Timo Beckman

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Re: Emulating a black box - how would you go about this?
« Reply #8 on: August 13, 2012, 02:40:45 PM »

The respons of the low channel has a bump after the x-over point .
It might be a eq point or it could be a NT filter or a chebichev filter . Is this a BSS Processor ?
if so it could be a 4rt order NTM filter but i would have to check that measuring my BSS Blu 80 units on the processor outputs . Could be just a eq point also .....
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Riley Casey

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Re: Emulating a black box - how would you go about this?
« Reply #9 on: August 14, 2012, 12:07:57 PM »

Its actually for 88s but good eye Tim.  Timo these are BSS processors but when I was in the early stages of testing I tried an NTM filter in that spot and did not get a good match.  I was actually able to get a better match by building the components of an NTM filter with an L-R 4th order and then dropping in a separate notch.  The project, now that I've been outed, is an attempt  to build a close approximation Vertec 4888 v4 filters into a BSS FDS336 using transfer function measurements of the factory stock settings from an FDS366.  I decided to build from the top down since it became clear early on that I was going to run out of filter DSP resources before I got everything I needed.  If I'm going to have to run through some outboard EQ to dial it in further I'd rather it not be in the voice range. Not too surprising of course, at least part of the reason the 366 costs almost three times the price of a 336 but I had the processor on the shelf and wanted a spare unit for those crash and burn moments.  This high lights my somewhat tenuous grip on FFT measurement fundamentals though.  The  FDS366 in the stock settings has what appears to be a 3.5ms delay inserted into the low pass output.  Now since this is the "device under test" as seen by the measurement system why is the phase display so unstable on both the 366 and the 336 when the delay is set to the same 3.54 ms ?  I posted a screen cap of the magnitude and phase angle of both units as well as the arrival time selection in the delay finder ( the white vertical line on the first peak ).  The best looking phase display I could get is the second transfer function screen shot with the arrival delay offset as shown in the second delay finder screen shot.   

The magnitude trace looks a lot like the VerTec v4 4889 midrange processing....  am I close?

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Timo Beckman wrote : It might be a eq point or it could be a NT filter or a chebichev filter . Is this a BSS Processor ?

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Re: Emulating a black box - how would you go about this?
« Reply #9 on: August 14, 2012, 12:07:57 PM »


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