The second device was doomed to fail on lining up the LEDs. There's 22 acrylic panels and 20 LEDs on each of the strips. So it's fair to say them not lining up properly is no fault of yours.
That second one looks like it would be good if it were about £40 as opposed to over £100. I quite like the industrial look, but at that price really you shouldn't be paying for a factory work experience position.
Totally. Is it just me, but it seems like this cheap Chinese tat has gone up in price a lot in the last few years? Haven't bought on anything on Aliexpress for a while now, doesn't seem to any point.
The second one probably included the other type of parts by accident. The thinner spacers combined with the longer LED strips were probably a different model. I wasn’t expecting that price either, it looks like something you’d buy from Argos for about £35.
The “dual channel” one that is actually mono just blows my mind. Why would they do such a stupid thing?! Anyway, you made it entertaining for us as usual!
They know the "consumers" are easily impressed mit der blinkin lights...but don't know enough to question why? All they need to know is...."it's cool"...(and if it can be mounted on their dashboard.)
Rather than speculate, whine or state the obvious, I will just thank you once again for taking us along to see these latest acquisitions. It makes my Sunday morning coffee extra special.
I'm the kinda guy who thinks the visual part is a good percentage of the total experience. I hate the way VU meters and Spectrum Analyzer displays have been removed from most audio equipment. That said, I love these vids showing off what's available. Thanks for the effort put into making these vids!
Agree with you, but I can also understand why they are removed when a lot of amplifiers etc are used in Home Theatre setups where you don't really want the VU meters and visualisations taking away from the movie experience.
@@EsotericArctos fair enough. Stereo became a niche and vu meters are only found on higher-end amplifier components AFAIK, and probably the manufacturers are assuming you have a dedicated listening room where a TV is irrelevant.
I think for the second one you should build it bottom to top with the LEDs already placed vertical in the base. Then you can check the alignment of each piece of perspex and decide which washers to use for the next one
to be specific, install led strips into base along with the threaded rods, put first acrylic layer on, install thick spacers. from here, try another layer of acrylic, add thin spacers if needed, otherwise move onto next layer. adjust thickness of each set of spacers per layer as needed. doing this process off the assembly, as became obvious, is an exercise in frustration.
I'm extremely familiar with the "I don't know what I was thinking when I ordered this" feeling... it's usually the result of a late night combined with alcohol.
Yeah, I remember a case of magic spoon cereal showing up and me wondering who bought it for me, only to find they were a sponsor of a channel I watch. 😅
The display is decent on the first one because it's an off-the-shelf module. They just snap it into their plastic frame along with some shoddily programmed microcontroller and done.
Really like the little avatar who explains things, hope your hand gets better soon! Thanks for sharing this, even if something turns out to be rubbish, the video is still entertaining :)
I live vicariously through this channel, in the hopes that one day Matt will stumble across the ideal spectrum analyzer and that I'll be able to snag one before his video causes the price to soar!
I honestly think the meh one is half decent, the price is within range just for the screen being used. But I hate it because graphic design is not their passion! Oh well.
Very nice of you Mat/Techmoan to "take the hit" on these three (3) audio spectrum analyzers and advise all of us viewers to "stay clear" of all of them. You're a class act sir. Fred
On the last analyser . . . the 63Hz band is duplicated to the 6 bands below it, so basically it's faking the lower bands, also 80Hz and 100Hz are duplicates of each other . . . it's all a bit scamy !
*spits tea at monitor* a bit! that thing reeks of scamy the button being upside down that display falling off the wobbly knobs what i dont get is how lazy they were with it, the stereo display instantly fell over because before he even called it out that the displays were duplicating i was looking at it going wait hold on why are the right and lefts exactly parallel even a song set like that would have had little moments of difference they didnt even try to attempt to pretend it was possible someone would notice.
I knew someone who bought one, I guess sometime around 1990. It was a hot pile of useless garbage. We were both very excited to get it going and it was a complete disappointment.
@@billschlafly4107 Did your experience differ from Techmoan's video about it? Once he got it working I liked how it looked. If I ever actually listened to music through speakers rather than ear buds, I would definitely get one.
The best visualizer I have ever seen was the Cthugha computer program. The problem was it actually looked better when my computer was a 486SX25 than after an upgrade to a 486DX2-66
@@MrDuncl You went with Cthulhu and didn't offer the requisite sacrifices and are surprised when your experience didn't meet expectations? I'd suggest that you count yourself lucky that you survived with your sanity (mostly) intact, and don't make the same mistake again! /s :)
When you ran the frequency sweep on the first two devices, it seems like they only do a few buckets and interpolate the values between each. You can see the line segments rising up and down individually, instead of having a smooth curve with a single peak. So it's really just like 8 bars spread out into 32 or 20. At least the third device seems to actually use one bucket per bar, for all its other faults.
@@minoreye9984 "Bucket" is a common term in mathematics/statistics/computing, it means a group of similar values. In this case, we're talking about "groups of frequencies". In a properly made frequency analyzer, each column being displayed should correspond to a single bucket, but the first two devices share buckets per column, and just interpolate between them. Using adimifus' analogy above, there are 7 tent poles (buckets), and the columns between each just get some proportion of the value of the two nearest poles, hence it looks like a stretched tarp. The column half way between two tent poles is higher by half the difference of the poles, and so on.
Uhh the third one was better because it was not interpolating the graphs down to 7... did you miss the beginning and the end when it just went nuts and shoved 7 bars in the air on the low end then all the bars went off on the high end? yea sure maybe its trying to have more resolution but it screws up so bad that it produces even worse garbage data than the first 2, yes sure those might only have 7 data points but they looked ok doing it smoothly transitioning, plus they dont try to act like they are better than they are... that third one tried to act like it was stereo and professional with things like the frequency numbers at the bottom and it failed so hard id rather have the first two.
@@compzac I did not say it was objectively a better product, not sure where you got that idea from. Regarding the terrible low/high response on the sweep, it might be they used a small FFT window, and/or there is some sort of "auto gain control" that amplifies noise when given a single frequency. It's probably built for blinkenlight entertainment (despite its claims) and so is only really designed to analyze music. Can't really argue about the "stereo and professional" point, it really is shitty business. But as I said, it has other flaws, it's just decent in this specific respect. Overall, if I was forced to choose one of them at gunpoint, I'd still pick it because the user interface is not entirely insane and unhinged, designed by someone not in Chaotic Neutral D&D alignment.
The last spectrum analyzer display looks like it is using the SP107e RGB controller that is sold on Amazon for like $20. It claims to be stereo when it is only mono, and a poor one at that.
Strong “James May’s The Reassembler” vibes through the middle but of this video. Honestly I’d you released a real time version of the entire process I’d watch it to go to bed. “Techmoan’s The Assembler and Disassembler and Reassembler and Disassembler and Reassembler.”
I love these spectrum analyzer videos. If I may, just a suggestion when assembling something like that second analyzer, try building in place. Start by inserting the LED strips then the metal rods and then stack the plastic pieces and spacers as needed as you go. Rather than constructing the whole thing at once just to disassemble it each time.
Hey Mat, I just wanted to let you know that I really appreciate the little cartoon Mat that you added in from time to time to point certain things out. It's a really fun addition, and takes me back to when you did your little muppet-esque segments. I realize those probably took a great deal of work, but I did appreciate them too, and I wonder if they'll ever make a comeback on your channel, because I'm sure I'm not the only one who misses them. Also, all those times of taking the analyser apart and putting it back together again, and even at the end they still didn't line up correctly. Honestly, I can't even begin. I'd be very disappointed in these things too. And that last one. No care taken at all in the design, manufacture or delivery of it to you. Wow.
I recall the reason Mat removed the puppets was because UA-cam somehow started labeling his videos as for kids (and all of the restrictions that entails), and it was exceedingly difficult to remove that label. So unfortunately he got rid of his puppets to avoid all of the headache that came with it.
It's really wonderful how much poorly designed, useless plastic junk like this is being manufactured. I actually love to think about how much labor and raw materials are essentially being funneled directly into landfills so someone can sell this e-waste on questionable websites for a minor profit, and it doesn't upset me at all.
Underated comment, exactly this! Matt does not care he has spent the best part of half a grand on this rubbish because he will get it back and then some in in youtube ad revenue and then just dump them at the tip. But this sort of fruadulent crap is helping in killing the planet.
I liked the, 'look', of the first one, but out of them all, I wouldn't want to have to pay as much for any of what are all sub-standard products. How that third one had the gall to call itself, 'professional', is anyone's guess. It's all academical, as I wouldn't have wanted to pay any more than about £30-£40 for any of them anyway.
Yeah, sadly these days we should stay away from any electronics that have the "professional" word in the name or description lol 😆 The real professional equipment is well-known and they don't need to brag about it
It's like "pleasant tasting cherry" flavored cough syrup. That was the actual flavor name. I drank the whole bottle, to see if I would get accustomed to the flavor, but nope. The flavor just got weirder as the night went on.
@@MadScientist267 hahaha indeed, but then again, anyone using all the new medications advertised on TV that mention tons of possible, even fatal side effects would qualify for a nomination, right? "Talk to your doctor about Suicyda and ask if it's right for you" 😃
Thank you for the review, years ago I used to have a plug-in sound to light unit which I used with a six foot florescent tube ! Happy memories of strong strobing lights in my white painted bedroom. It didn't last very long but was pretty awesome after a session in the pub ! I wish I'd kept it and now maybe I could repair it, but as they say "Life is too short" !
The 3rd one was damaged by the unsecured plug right next to the unit. Naive package designers rarely take inertia into account and that leads to damage regardless of how much foam they put around the unit. Good quality can be had out of China, but it usually requires expert design and on premises ex-pats in charge to ensure quality is maintained. But Chinese-designed with a cheap-out mindset? Forget about quality!
I cannot think of a single reason why I'd ever want to buy any of the visualizers you've shown. I also cannot think of a single reason why I'd ever want to miss any of your videos. This is some of my very favorite entertainment on UA-cam, period. Thanks again for another great video. Cheers from Chile 🇨🇱.
Ah well. The quest continues! Btw I really appreciate these videos, I’m also constantly looking for a decent one of these and it’s amazing to watch someone sort the wheat from the chaff. Mostly chaff.
You could have build the second one on the device 1st Screw the bolts in 2nd Stick the LED stripes in 3rd Put the acrylics on one at a time and you have the LEDs in and can look where to put the spacers.... Would have been easy, but they didn't made a manual for it...
You, sir, have the patience of a saint. ALso, I like at the very end when all 3 are going, that the top 2 are doing roughly the same thing, and the bottom one is in a world of its own.
It is insane that they sell these things for this amount! Apparently nowadays, all we can get is rubbish that flashes colors! I know that a true stereo spectrum analyzer can be built with quality & at a fair price. Why doesn't anyone build it?
Also the market for a decent led, vu meter, spectrum analyzer, or visualizer, is very very small. The manufacturers can't generate enough profit to actually make something good worthwhile and sustain it for a group so niche. Sony and Magnavox are prime examples, especially all their overpriced HDMI cables.
Repurpose an old laptop, tablet or DIY raspberry Pi to make an LCD screen based one for cheaper, easier and more versatile, you can even find virtual vintage needle vu meter.
The problem is not everyone knows how to code on a computer, or do any work outside of their skills. These products are more for people who don't want to take part of any of the hassle of building their own unit.
@@Lively_1185 Software already exist and even so there is probably more interest in learning a new skill like basic use of Linux than that tedious expensive joke of a product.
Congratulations! You passed the test and we hereby offer you a position at the assembly line of our electronics manufacturing plant in Wuhan, China. You showed a lot of perseverance and willingness to do good, honest work, despite setbacks. We have faith that you will be able to sort out the problem in the factory. ;)
For the second one, the way I would have put the panels on there is to screw the screw rods onto the base with the LED's installed on it. Then panel by panel slide them over the screw rods and LED bars and adjust the lining as needed for each section, rather than building it all and then sliding it on the LED bars and base. Doing it this way should make lining up the acrylic pieces easier as well as when you get about 1/2 the way up, sliding the panels over the screw rods and LED bars should be easier as it should become stiffer. But this is my opinion though. Also I don't think it was worth what they asked for it.
This exactly. It has to be assembled with the components in place then the plastic built up layer by layer so you can eyeball where the lifts have to be doubled up. Really was making the job 4x harder then it should be.
I want to know who the target market for these spectrum analysers are aimed at. It is a lot of money to effectively risk on a random item of questionable quality and functionality from overseas Even if I was in the market for one, I would want to spend at most 1/3 on a sight unseen analyser.
I would put the big one somewhere on a party just for fun. It wouldn't need to be very accurate for that. The brightness would be more important than the finish, and brightness it seems to have plenty of. Most music has so many frequencies going on at the same time that you wouldn't notice the difference anyway, unless the spreading would result in all bars lighting up simultaneously without any distinction anymore.
Buyers remorse is a thing. There's something for getting a device and it looking pristine when you take it out the package; the fingerprints were off putting, the germaphobe in me wanted to spray disinfectant all over the second one before touching it
Just curious, does it cause you any dissonance, knowing you'd suffer a hideous, agonizing death without the symbiotic microbes that infest every square millimeter of your body 24/7?
@@ItsMrAssholeToYou i'm a slight germaphobe, but i honestly don't mind my own germs at all but the thought of other germs from other people make me want to disinfect everything lol
For item 3, I wonder if you had plugged into the XLR / 1/4" inputs, if one of the two displays would have been for the "second input"? Maybe they're not "left/right", but rather "input 1/input 2"? (I wouldn't count on it, based on all the other issues, of course.)
DISAPPOINTMENT CENTRAL! 3rd one started with so much promise but I guess I’m stuck with the Alesis and dorrough meters until you find a true winner. The hunt will continue. I got a new one last week it’s a bit cheesy but after watching this it’s $50 well spent that runs rings around this lol. Stay safe and keep on monaing
Hi Matt, I think with the 2nd device you are sopposed to use both plastic and rubber spacers and then tighten bolts til the LED,s meet up with the plastic strips. Keep the fantastic videos coming dear fellow!
It's a shame that these over-priced pieces of landfill fodder are taking valuable chips that could probably be put to better use during the global chip shortage. Made for some entertaining if wince-inducing watching though, thanks Mat!
At least those chips could be put to better use making non-crap versions of the crap they're selling. In other words, make the product actually worth making in the first place.
That second display is interesting. It looks like they are multiplexing the LEDs (why not) but with the mux chip on each LED stick. Interesting that the chips aren't in the base, but I suppose that eliminates having lots of pins per LED stick. For those that don't understand what I just said: Muxes (multiplexers) allow electronics to control a large number of devices through a small number of data inputs. In this case, we have lots of LEDs in each "stick," but the spectrum analyzer has a mux chip on each stick that assigns "addresses" to each LED. When data comes into the stick, the mux is told what the data is as well as what LED it goes to, and it sends the data to the correct LED. This means that very few connections are needed to describe which LED the data goes to + what the data is, meaning that the connector between the stick and the base need only have a few pins instead of 3-4 (depending on RGB standard) per LED. The drawback on muxing is that you can't update every LED at once. If you took slow-mo video of the spectrum analyzer, you might see a shimmering effect across it as each LED changes in sequence. You can often see this effect in LED signage or even alarm clocks.
As always a great video! I believe to build the second one properly, you need to plug the led strips in then slide the clear plastic over them, lining up each plastic row by adding or removing spacers as needed. Some may have only 1 spacer, other rows needing 2 or more. Makes it more difficult, but I bet you would have been more pleased. Way too much work for the price. The crack, and the crappy stereo on the third one really just ruined it. Bugger. :(
You should check out “dave's garage” channel. He’s an ex Microsoft programmer who’s made an open source spectrum analyser. He does some interesting stuff with, music and LEDS.
If the last one could have followed the sine wave sweep, you could have at least bought two of them & had one for each Channel. The signal is being distorted in the analog to digital conversion, during the sine wave sweep.
It's astonishing to me that there are this many awful spectrum analysers being made. You'd think that someone in the 21st century could be bothered to make a proper one, it's not exactly rocket science, but no, all we have are these infernal novelties.
Yeah, it was possible to do it right in the 20th century. Somehow electronics have gone downhill. Not just for spectrum analysers, but so much other stuff as well. I wonder if it's because it's easier for manufacturers to sell directly to the public, where they used to have to sell to distributors first, and they wouldn't take junk they couldn't sell themselves.
For the acrylic analyzer, perhaps you can use 1 soft space with every 5 hard spacer? So as the leds start to go out of "sync" with the acrylic, use the soft one to correct it.
I think the bigger spaces are the main ones, and the smaller ones are meant to be added every few lines to help it to line up, I would just take a look if the LEDs line up, while assembling and if they don't, fix it on the go using the smaller ones. Also, it looks really good,at least on the camera.
I mean they're all pointless but I thought a bit harsh on the first one, a nice toy if a bit overpriced. At least it didn't lie like the third, that was the one that really annoyed me 😂
I would love to see a video just going over your collection of hardware as a whole! How do you store it? How much space does it all take? Are some pieces out on display? What are some of your favorite items? Things like that, lol.
This is great consumer electronics reporting. I have been thinking about getting one of these spectrum meter things from AliExpress for some bling. Thanks for doing all the hard work for me.
You have amazing patience. I laughed out loud during the 2nd one when you dumped all the LED strips out of the acrylic out of frustration.
Duct taped together and file 13!
The second device was doomed to fail on lining up the LEDs. There's 22 acrylic panels and 20 LEDs on each of the strips. So it's fair to say them not lining up properly is no fault of yours.
Yep, clearly no tolerance analysis was performed. Nor were any f@cks given at the factory!
I guess you could use 20 panels and all the spacers, but, yeah it's a very half-assed implementation of an over-complicated design :/
I assumed the extra panels were to be unspaced at the bottom to hide the chips.
@@jmctoob2 - Thought the same, but it didn't look like the slots were big enough to fit the chips.
@@midniteoyl8913 Maybe some of the strips have a larger hole for the chips
That second one looks like it would be good if it were about £40 as opposed to over £100. I quite like the industrial look, but at that price really you shouldn't be paying for a factory work experience position.
Yup, I like the design of the second one
Fully assembled and with the LEDs in the right place, then yeah.
£10-20, tops.
Totally. Is it just me, but it seems like this cheap Chinese tat has gone up in price a lot in the last few years? Haven't bought on anything on Aliexpress for a while now, doesn't seem to any point.
It would look pretty good, when lined up properly. But it is grossly overpriced.
The second one probably included the other type of parts by accident. The thinner spacers combined with the longer LED strips were probably a different model. I wasn’t expecting that price either, it looks like something you’d buy from Argos for about £35.
The “dual channel” one that is actually mono just blows my mind. Why would they do such a stupid thing?! Anyway, you made it entertaining for us as usual!
money.
They could have used 2 mono circuits stacked one on top of the other (and use that in their mono version).
It's China style marketing
They know the "consumers" are easily impressed mit der blinkin lights...but don't know enough to question why? All they need to know is...."it's cool"...(and if it can be mounted on their dashboard.)
Agreed. It's not an impressive light show, and you can't tell which channel is clipping to use it as a spectrum analyzer.
Rather than speculate, whine or state the obvious, I will just thank you once again for taking us along to see these latest acquisitions. It makes my Sunday morning coffee extra special.
It's saturday.
@@Aeduo this is clearly a post from the future; don't mess with time travellers, they can come back and kick your butt lol 😆
13:39 "I feel like I just volunteered for a job in a Chinese factory here, and it wasn't really what I wanted to do today..." PRICELESS!
like check
Remember, Techmoan, the Chinese don't care. They only want your money. That's how they get back at us for cr*pping on them all these years.
I'm the kinda guy who thinks the visual part is a good percentage of the total experience. I hate the way VU meters and Spectrum Analyzer displays have been removed from most audio equipment. That said, I love these vids showing off what's available. Thanks for the effort put into making these vids!
Agree with you, but I can also understand why they are removed when a lot of amplifiers etc are used in Home Theatre setups where you don't really want the VU meters and visualisations taking away from the movie experience.
@@EsotericArctos fair enough. Stereo became a niche and vu meters are only found on higher-end amplifier components AFAIK, and probably the manufacturers are assuming you have a dedicated listening room where a TV is irrelevant.
I love the lasers and lights at edc festivals.
I love your channel! You big dummy 🤪
Rick Diculous they plain out lyin to ya.
Techmoan's easter story.
He suffered for us so we don't have to. Concerning number 2.
He made me suffer by fubarring the assembling.
no.3 was a no. 2 as well...
Yup! Enjoyed whilst stuffing chocolate malt eggs in my face!
If you think that's suffering, imagine trying to dust it off.
Andrew pls become Orthodox, look up the Holy Fire of Jerusalem
I think for the second one you should build it bottom to top with the LEDs already placed vertical in the base. Then you can check the alignment of each piece of perspex and decide which washers to use for the next one
to be specific, install led strips into base along with the threaded rods, put first acrylic layer on, install thick spacers. from here, try another layer of acrylic, add thin spacers if needed, otherwise move onto next layer. adjust thickness of each set of spacers per layer as needed.
doing this process off the assembly, as became obvious, is an exercise in frustration.
Yep, exactly how I would have done it.
i was screaming at the screen!! how was this not obvious????
I'm extremely familiar with the "I don't know what I was thinking when I ordered this" feeling... it's usually the result of a late night combined with alcohol.
As my friends always tell me… “Don’t drink and Prime”… lol
Yeah, I remember a case of magic spoon cereal showing up and me wondering who bought it for me, only to find they were a sponsor of a channel I watch. 😅
42 minutes of Techmoan. Brilliant 🤩
The display is decent on the first one because it's an off-the-shelf module. They just snap it into their plastic frame along with some shoddily programmed microcontroller and done.
Correct way of assembly is probably screw the posts into the base, insert LED strips and then space the acrylics to proper level as you go?
But you cannot space them properly unless you make your own spacers instead of using the supplied ones.
Perhaps you need to use both the hard and soft spacers as Matt did, but then tighten the top bolts until the space is correct?
@@MrJef06 I do not think so, the difference of height of the two spacers seems too much. I think it is just manufacturer's error or incompetence.
I think I’d trim slots into the thin separators and then try using them to shim up as needed ... but does look like a nightmare.
@@pev_ It may not line perfectly but using one spacer or the other or adding both when needed should make a better result.
Thank you for always doing the music while removing the screen protectors. This is always a favorite treat in the videos it appears in.
Really like the little avatar who explains things, hope your hand gets better soon! Thanks for sharing this, even if something turns out to be rubbish, the video is still entertaining :)
I would like to see muppet instead of graphic avatar
I like that „formerly known as old man tonie“ avatar a lot!
I live vicariously through this channel, in the hopes that one day Matt will stumble across the ideal spectrum analyzer and that I'll be able to snag one before his video causes the price to soar!
These devices fall into three categories: meh, nightmarish and you-must-be-joking.
That's an excellent summary...
I honestly think the meh one is half decent, the price is within range just for the screen being used. But I hate it because graphic design is not their passion! Oh well.
Thank you for showing those contraptions so we wouldn't be tempted to waste the money on such things. 😂
Those were some seriously disappointing products.
Shoddy build quality/poor instructions and overpriced.
This video is the truest definition of TechMoan I've seen yet!
And in the best way of course, as always, thanks Mat.
Very nice of you Mat/Techmoan to "take the hit" on these three (3) audio spectrum analyzers and advise all of us viewers to "stay clear" of all of them. You're a class act sir. Fred
We appreciate your patience and dedication!
On the last analyser . . . the 63Hz band is duplicated to the 6 bands below it, so basically it's faking the lower bands, also 80Hz and 100Hz are duplicates of each other . . . it's all a bit scamy !
*spits tea at monitor* a bit! that thing reeks of scamy the button being upside down that display falling off the wobbly knobs what i dont get is how lazy they were with it, the stereo display instantly fell over because before he even called it out that the displays were duplicating i was looking at it going wait hold on why are the right and lefts exactly parallel even a song set like that would have had little moments of difference they didnt even try to attempt to pretend it was possible someone would notice.
Personally, I think the ultra simple Laser FX is still the best music visualizer that you've shown.
I knew someone who bought one, I guess sometime around 1990. It was a hot pile of useless garbage. We were both very excited to get it going and it was a complete disappointment.
@@billschlafly4107 Did your experience differ from Techmoan's video about it? Once he got it working I liked how it looked. If I ever actually listened to music through speakers rather than ear buds, I would definitely get one.
I had one as a kid. I really liked it. 🤷♂️
The best visualizer I have ever seen was the Cthugha computer program. The problem was it actually looked better when my computer was a 486SX25 than after an upgrade to a 486DX2-66
@@MrDuncl You went with Cthulhu and didn't offer the requisite sacrifices and are surprised when your experience didn't meet expectations? I'd suggest that you count yourself lucky that you survived with your sanity (mostly) intact, and don't make the same mistake again! /s :)
Your methodical approach 'chills' me Sir. I look forward to your videos- a vision of a fair and kind world with tech. taking us there.
You "Took One For The Team " there sir and I applaud you...cheers.
The second constructor when not switched on looks like Duga locator station at Chernobyl-2.
When you ran the frequency sweep on the first two devices, it seems like they only do a few buckets and interpolate the values between each. You can see the line segments rising up and down individually, instead of having a smooth curve with a single peak. So it's really just like 8 bars spread out into 32 or 20.
At least the third device seems to actually use one bucket per bar, for all its other faults.
Yep I noticed that, too. It looks like 7 evenly spaced tent poles going up and down.
@@minoreye9984 "Bucket" is a common term in mathematics/statistics/computing, it means a group of similar values. In this case, we're talking about "groups of frequencies".
In a properly made frequency analyzer, each column being displayed should correspond to a single bucket, but the first two devices share buckets per column, and just interpolate between them.
Using adimifus' analogy above, there are 7 tent poles (buckets), and the columns between each just get some proportion of the value of the two nearest poles, hence it looks like a stretched tarp. The column half way between two tent poles is higher by half the difference of the poles, and so on.
Perhaps a rectangle windowed FFT.
Uhh the third one was better because it was not interpolating the graphs down to 7... did you miss the beginning and the end when it just went nuts and shoved 7 bars in the air on the low end then all the bars went off on the high end?
yea sure maybe its trying to have more resolution but it screws up so bad that it produces even worse garbage data than the first 2, yes sure those might only have 7 data points but they looked ok doing it smoothly transitioning, plus they dont try to act like they are better than they are... that third one tried to act like it was stereo and professional with things like the frequency numbers at the bottom and it failed so hard id rather have the first two.
@@compzac I did not say it was objectively a better product, not sure where you got that idea from.
Regarding the terrible low/high response on the sweep, it might be they used a small FFT window, and/or there is some sort of "auto gain control" that amplifies noise when given a single frequency. It's probably built for blinkenlight entertainment (despite its claims) and so is only really designed to analyze music.
Can't really argue about the "stereo and professional" point, it really is shitty business. But as I said, it has other flaws, it's just decent in this specific respect.
Overall, if I was forced to choose one of them at gunpoint, I'd still pick it because the user interface is not entirely insane and unhinged, designed by someone not in Chaotic Neutral D&D alignment.
The last spectrum analyzer display looks like it is using the SP107e RGB controller that is sold on Amazon for like $20. It claims to be stereo when it is only mono, and a poor one at that.
Yeah that one is poor.
Mono, and frequency handling / identification / whatever you want to call it is really really bad.
Strong “James May’s The Reassembler” vibes through the middle but of this video. Honestly I’d you released a real time version of the entire process I’d watch it to go to bed.
“Techmoan’s The Assembler and Disassembler and Reassembler and Disassembler and Reassembler.”
I love these spectrum analyzer videos. If I may, just a suggestion when assembling something like that second analyzer, try building in place. Start by inserting the LED strips then the metal rods and then stack the plastic pieces and spacers as needed as you go. Rather than constructing the whole thing at once just to disassemble it each time.
Exactly what I was going to say. :)
Then you'd not only be doing the job of a Chinese factory worker, but the job of a Chinese design engineer as well!
Hey Mat, I just wanted to let you know that I really appreciate the little cartoon Mat that you added in from time to time to point certain things out. It's a really fun addition, and takes me back to when you did your little muppet-esque segments. I realize those probably took a great deal of work, but I did appreciate them too, and I wonder if they'll ever make a comeback on your channel, because I'm sure I'm not the only one who misses them.
Also, all those times of taking the analyser apart and putting it back together again, and even at the end they still didn't line up correctly. Honestly, I can't even begin. I'd be very disappointed in these things too. And that last one. No care taken at all in the design, manufacture or delivery of it to you. Wow.
I recall the reason Mat removed the puppets was because UA-cam somehow started labeling his videos as for kids (and all of the restrictions that entails), and it was exceedingly difficult to remove that label. So unfortunately he got rid of his puppets to avoid all of the headache that came with it.
@@kutter_ttl6786 oh that really sucks! UA-cam just doesn't make sense these days.
It's really wonderful how much poorly designed, useless plastic junk like this is being manufactured. I actually love to think about how much labor and raw materials are essentially being funneled directly into landfills so someone can sell this e-waste on questionable websites for a minor profit, and it doesn't upset me at all.
Underated comment, exactly this! Matt does not care he has spent the best part of half a grand on this rubbish because he will get it back and then some in in youtube ad revenue and then just dump them at the tip. But this sort of fruadulent crap is helping in killing the planet.
well there's always rich people in the West that will buy them then toss em. Case in point- this video
@@nickloss2377 yeah let's blame the west, that dirty region thinks it's so good, buying things and shit.
@@nickloss2377 "Rich people" 👀🙄
Thank Christ we've oriented our entire economy, society, and planet around THAT, and not something like making life better for humans, eh???
I liked the, 'look', of the first one, but out of them all, I wouldn't want to have to pay as much for any of what are all sub-standard products. How that third one had the gall to call itself, 'professional', is anyone's guess. It's all academical, as I wouldn't have wanted to pay any more than about £30-£40 for any of them anyway.
Yeah, sadly these days we should stay away from any electronics that have the "professional" word in the name or description lol 😆 The real professional equipment is well-known and they don't need to brag about it
It's like "pleasant tasting cherry" flavored cough syrup. That was the actual flavor name. I drank the whole bottle, to see if I would get accustomed to the flavor, but nope. The flavor just got weirder as the night went on.
@@GizzyDillespee LOL don't try this at home (or anywhere to that extent, maybe in the parking lot of the ER?)
@@MadScientist267 hahaha indeed, but then again, anyone using all the new medications advertised on TV that mention tons of possible, even fatal side effects would qualify for a nomination, right? "Talk to your doctor about Suicyda and ask if it's right for you" 😃
Thanks for buying all the crap, so we don't have to!
Thank you for the review, years ago I used to have a plug-in sound to light unit which I used with a six foot florescent tube !
Happy memories of strong strobing lights in my white painted bedroom.
It didn't last very long but was pretty awesome after a session in the pub !
I wish I'd kept it and now maybe I could repair it, but as they say "Life is too short" !
thank you for the clear and honest assessment!
I would have hurled it across the room in frustration ! Congratulations on your patience!
Thanks for the warnings about the disappointingly inferior and over priced products.
YES! My favourite format is back!
The 3rd one was damaged by the unsecured plug right next to the unit. Naive package designers rarely take inertia into account and that leads to damage regardless of how much foam they put around the unit.
Good quality can be had out of China, but it usually requires expert design and on premises ex-pats in charge to ensure quality is maintained.
But Chinese-designed with a cheap-out mindset? Forget about quality!
I cannot think of a single reason why I'd ever want to buy any of the visualizers you've shown. I also cannot think of a single reason why I'd ever want to miss any of your videos. This is some of my very favorite entertainment on UA-cam, period. Thanks again for another great video. Cheers from Chile 🇨🇱.
Ah well. The quest continues!
Btw I really appreciate these videos, I’m also constantly looking for a decent one of these and it’s amazing to watch someone sort the wheat from the chaff. Mostly chaff.
You could have build the second one on the device
1st Screw the bolts in
2nd Stick the LED stripes in
3rd Put the acrylics on one at a time and you have the LEDs in and can look where to put the spacers....
Would have been easy, but they didn't made a manual for it...
You, sir, have the patience of a saint.
ALso, I like at the very end when all 3 are going, that the top 2 are doing roughly the same thing, and the bottom one is in a world of its own.
Bloody hell... That second one, I was chuckling all along, thanks for that one!
It is insane that they sell these things for this amount! Apparently nowadays, all we can get is rubbish that flashes colors!
I know that a true stereo spectrum analyzer can be built with quality & at a fair price. Why doesn't anyone build it?
Nobody wants to pay the fair price, is why.
Also the market for a decent led, vu meter, spectrum analyzer, or visualizer, is very very small. The manufacturers can't generate enough profit to actually make something good worthwhile and sustain it for a group so niche.
Sony and Magnavox are prime examples, especially all their overpriced HDMI cables.
I just love your style in these. Ideas. Every detail is considered and I love your northern dry humour.
Finding a good analyzer is a long journey. Thanks for helping to the best of your ability!
This simulation games become insanely realistic. This China Assembly Plant Simulator looks rad!
I wonder if in China, they have a Techmoan Simulator.
Absolutely insane how difficult the assembly was in that second one. Well done for persisting!
I swear these things get more expensive and worse as time goes on
The best part of the spectrum analyzer reviews is watching the sa of my Kenwood equalizer doing the exact same movement at the same time
thanks for giving us a real 'tech moan'!
This series is very interesting. I enjoy seeing the assembly and multiple units each video.
Thanks! Sorry about your loss.
Repurpose an old laptop, tablet or DIY raspberry Pi to make an LCD screen based one for cheaper, easier and more versatile, you can even find virtual vintage needle vu meter.
This is a great idea!
The problem is not everyone knows how to code on a computer, or do any work outside of their skills. These products are more for people who don't want to take part of any of the hassle of building their own unit.
@@Lively_1185 Software already exist and even so there is probably more interest in learning a new skill like basic use of Linux than that tedious expensive joke of a product.
Hook it up to back of a large flat screen TV too, might as well make the display huge.
Congratulations! You passed the test and we hereby offer you a position at the assembly line of our electronics manufacturing plant in Wuhan, China. You showed a lot of perseverance and willingness to do good, honest work, despite setbacks. We have faith that you will be able to sort out the problem in the factory.
;)
I'm stunned by that bent plug, how does that even happen?
Me too, I wonder :0
Thx Mat, I really appreciate your well made videos especially when they recommend not wasting my money 👍😀
the first one at least looks nice. It wouldnt be such a bad deal if it was 100e cheaper
i was just watching some of your annual spectrum analysers videos last night so this is pretty cool
SUN headline:
Swindon chap driven mad by quest for perfect spectrum analyzer
Thanks for all your trouble with this one, Matt!
For the second one, the way I would have put the panels on there is to screw the screw rods onto the base with the LED's installed on it. Then panel by panel slide them over the screw rods and LED bars and adjust the lining as needed for each section, rather than building it all and then sliding it on the LED bars and base. Doing it this way should make lining up the acrylic pieces easier as well as when you get about 1/2 the way up, sliding the panels over the screw rods and LED bars should be easier as it should become stiffer. But this is my opinion though.
Also I don't think it was worth what they asked for it.
I agree, that would make it align perfectly since it seemed to be an issue with the same rows of all the columns, but what a pain in the a*s 😆
This exactly. It has to be assembled with the components in place then the plastic built up layer by layer so you can eyeball where the lifts have to be doubled up. Really was making the job 4x harder then it should be.
I suppose you'll put them with all of those mini disc players that did not work.... Thanks for another great video more! more! more!
I want to know who the target market for these spectrum analysers are aimed at.
It is a lot of money to effectively risk on a random item of questionable quality and functionality from overseas
Even if I was in the market for one, I would want to spend at most 1/3 on a sight unseen analyser.
I've had proper ones years ago that were full analogue with fewer channels that were much, much better.
Remember color organs?
I would put the big one somewhere on a party just for fun. It wouldn't need to be very accurate for that. The brightness would be more important than the finish, and brightness it seems to have plenty of.
Most music has so many frequencies going on at the same time that you wouldn't notice the difference anyway, unless the spreading would result in all bars lighting up simultaneously without any distinction anymore.
That second one. Flippin' eck' indeed!
It would have been in the bin in my house.
The quality of the last one was astonishing.
Buyers remorse is a thing. There's something for getting a device and it looking pristine when you take it out the package; the fingerprints were off putting, the germaphobe in me wanted to spray disinfectant all over the second one before touching it
Just curious, does it cause you any dissonance, knowing you'd suffer a hideous, agonizing death without the symbiotic microbes that infest every square millimeter of your body 24/7?
@@ItsMrAssholeToYou i'm a slight germaphobe, but i honestly don't mind my own germs at all
but the thought of other germs from other people make me want to disinfect everything lol
For item 3, I wonder if you had plugged into the XLR / 1/4" inputs, if one of the two displays would have been for the "second input"? Maybe they're not "left/right", but rather "input 1/input 2"? (I wouldn't count on it, based on all the other issues, of course.)
DISAPPOINTMENT CENTRAL! 3rd one started with so much promise but I guess I’m stuck with the Alesis and dorrough meters until you find a true winner. The hunt will continue. I got a new one last week it’s a bit cheesy but after watching this it’s $50 well spent that runs rings around this lol. Stay safe and keep on monaing
38:18-39:00 accidental distract "It's mono and hopeless" 10/10
The second one seems like the perfect gift for a fussy person you hate.
Hi Matt, I think with the 2nd device you are sopposed to use both plastic and rubber spacers and then tighten bolts til the LED,s meet up with the plastic strips.
Keep the fantastic videos coming dear fellow!
It's a shame that these over-priced pieces of landfill fodder are taking valuable chips that could probably be put to better use during the global chip shortage. Made for some entertaining if wince-inducing watching though, thanks Mat!
At least those chips could be put to better use making non-crap versions of the crap they're selling. In other words, make the product actually worth making in the first place.
I wasn't expecting this to be such a saga!
I miss my Audiosource and Kenwood spectrum analyzers back in the 90s. I'm sad now.
33:10 - Somewhere Father Robert Ballecer (Padre SJ) is weeping as Mat peels off the protective plastic.
incredible job sticking with the second one. i would have given up at the beginning
Techmoan. Buying crap so we don't have to.
I do enjoy your hard work making content . all the very best . Happy Easter
That second display is interesting. It looks like they are multiplexing the LEDs (why not) but with the mux chip on each LED stick. Interesting that the chips aren't in the base, but I suppose that eliminates having lots of pins per LED stick.
For those that don't understand what I just said: Muxes (multiplexers) allow electronics to control a large number of devices through a small number of data inputs. In this case, we have lots of LEDs in each "stick," but the spectrum analyzer has a mux chip on each stick that assigns "addresses" to each LED. When data comes into the stick, the mux is told what the data is as well as what LED it goes to, and it sends the data to the correct LED. This means that very few connections are needed to describe which LED the data goes to + what the data is, meaning that the connector between the stick and the base need only have a few pins instead of 3-4 (depending on RGB standard) per LED. The drawback on muxing is that you can't update every LED at once. If you took slow-mo video of the spectrum analyzer, you might see a shimmering effect across it as each LED changes in sequence. You can often see this effect in LED signage or even alarm clocks.
Interesting,thanks for the elaborated version!
I love this channel and his determination 👏 best ever.
As always a great video! I believe to build the second one properly, you need to plug the led strips in then slide the clear plastic over them, lining up each plastic row by adding or removing spacers as needed. Some may have only 1 spacer, other rows needing 2 or more. Makes it more difficult, but I bet you would have been more pleased. Way too much work for the price. The crack, and the crappy stereo on the third one really just ruined it. Bugger. :(
You should check out “dave's garage” channel. He’s an ex Microsoft programmer who’s made an open source spectrum analyser. He does some interesting stuff with, music and LEDS.
Thank you for the recommendation!
That first device ALMOST looks cool enough to become my pinball topper, but the front panel is fugly.
As much as it sucks for you, these are my favorite videos. Lol
If the last one could have followed the sine wave sweep, you could have at least bought two of them & had one for each Channel.
The signal is being distorted in the analog to digital conversion, during the sine wave sweep.
The second one feels like a student project!
The patience and determination are beyond legendary :D
It's astonishing to me that there are this many awful spectrum analysers being made. You'd think that someone in the 21st century could be bothered to make a proper one, it's not exactly rocket science, but no, all we have are these infernal novelties.
Yeah, it was possible to do it right in the 20th century. Somehow electronics have gone downhill. Not just for spectrum analysers, but so much other stuff as well. I wonder if it's because it's easier for manufacturers to sell directly to the public, where they used to have to sell to distributors first, and they wouldn't take junk they couldn't sell themselves.
For the acrylic analyzer, perhaps you can use 1 soft space with every 5 hard spacer? So as the leds start to go out of "sync" with the acrylic, use the soft one to correct it.
Well that was an adventure...plenty of ups and downs (pun intended), twists and suspenseful moments.
I think the bigger spaces are the main ones, and the smaller ones are meant to be added every few lines to help it to line up, I would just take a look if the LEDs line up, while assembling and if they don't, fix it on the go using the smaller ones.
Also, it looks really good,at least on the camera.
I mean they're all pointless but I thought a bit harsh on the first one, a nice toy if a bit overpriced. At least it didn't lie like the third, that was the one that really annoyed me 😂
Never surf Aliexpress after a few pints 😁
I still miss Winamp! That was stunning!
I do hope you return all three & get your money back. What a waste of 450 quid!
I would love to see a video just going over your collection of hardware as a whole! How do you store it? How much space does it all take? Are some pieces out on display? What are some of your favorite items? Things like that, lol.
This is great consumer electronics reporting. I have been thinking about getting one of these spectrum meter things from AliExpress for some bling. Thanks for doing all the hard work for me.