Measurement systems
- MLSSA board and software from DRA Laboratories: measurement and processing of impulse responses with the MLS method. Very old system (1988, DOS-based, ISA board) - this was the history (in 1989 I was the owner of the first MLSSA board imported to Italy, and I really need to thank here Douglas Rife for developing it - Aurora is "son" of his work!), but nowadays the MLSSA system is completely obsolete, and still very expensive.
- Gold Line TEF analyzer: measurement and processing of impulse responses with the TDS (linear sweep) method or with MLS. Expensive and obsolete. Severe hardware limitations.
- CLIO board from Audiomatica: the same as MLSSA, but cheaper, two channels and 16 bit converters instead of 12 bit. Another good Italian work, made by Mauro Bigi. Also this system is "son" of MLSSA... And I am also the happy owner of a couple of CLIO boards...
- WINMLS software for measuring impulse responses and computing acoustical parameters with the MLS method. Powerful, but expensive.
- ETF software for measuring single-channel impulse responses with the MLS method. Cheap and easy to use, although limited capabilities.
- DIRAC program from Acoustics Engineering (now sold by Bruel & Kjaer)- measurement of room's impulse responses and computation of acoustical parameters. Nice, but very expensive.
- Sample Champion - software for MLS measurement for room acoustics and loudspeaker evaluation. Good competitor of Dirac, WinMLS and Clio, cheaper and more versatile.
- JBL's Smaart Pro : real-time room acoustics measurements and reverberation time computation with a standard sound card
Convolution engines (with some measurement capabilities)
- Acoustic Mirror plugin from Sony Media : it is a Direct-X plugin which allows for impulse response measurement and convolution. Free (included in Sound Forge) and easy to use.
- RealReverb plug-in for WinAmp : freeware two-channels convolution - very easy to use!
- Lake Technology hardware and software convolution platforms: very expensive audio workstations capable of measurements, real-time auralization and multichannel convolution (including Ambisonics).
- WaveWarp 2.0 from SoundsLogical: many filtering modules connected by a block-diagram user's interface - includes convolution.
- The FIReverb Suite from CATT, produces synthetic (but realistic) multichannel impulse responses, includes a multichannel convolver.
- The BruteFIR open-source software for Linux, by Anders Torger: multichannel convolver. Great, very fast and completely FREE !!!
- Ambiovolver software from Jose' Javier Lopez - real time convolution of two input channels with up to 20 impulse responses, driving up to 10 loudspeaker - free, fast and solid!
- Voxengo VST plugins - generation of sweep test tones, impulse response deconvolution, realtime multichannel convolver - great tools, cheap and powerful! This is probably the most serious contender for some of the Aurora functions.
- Waves IR-1 and IR-360 plugins - professional-grade plugins for real-time convolution and impulse response measurement with the sine sweep method. Great control on the impulse response, quite expensive. Extensive collection of impulse responses included with IR-1, which were measered with... AURORA! Go to http://www.acoustics.net/ for more info...
Computation of inverse filters (loudspeaker/room correction with some measurement and analysis functions)
- DRC (Digital Room Correction) by Denis Sbragion - free tools for measuring impulse response and computing advanced inverse filters. Open-source and multiplatform - the "reference" tools about loudspeaker/room digital correction. Very powerful, but it requires some skillness and education...
- AXCO by Patrick Cazales - simplified user interface and Windows GUI for DRC. Makes DRC "easy" for us poor lame not-unix users...
- Acourate by Ulrich Brüggemann - impulse response measurement and computation of inverse FIR filters, also including AQT method. A new project, when finished it will be a very powerful and easy tool for digital equalization of sound systems.
Remember! Aurora gives You the best of the three worlds:
- professional measurements according to relevant international standards (ISO, IEC, ITU), with absolute SPL calibration and interface for turntables.
- advanced "virtual acoustics" rendering by multichannel convolution, real-time processing.
- digital inverse filters, cross-talk cancellation.