hollowman wrote:

RightMark Audio Analyzer software (RMAA) has been used by quite a few reviewers/testers -- private or professional/laboratory -- for evaluating the audio quality of PC-based systems. RMAA can be used to evaluate jitter, PS noise, etc.

Not sure whether Stereophile has used (or experimented with) RMAA or other/ similar PC-based analyzer software. Why or why not?

I have experimented with the RightMark analyzer. It is excellent but like the Arta analyser (which I have never used), it is limited by the quality of the soundcard used to capture the signals. It is not really in the class of the top-rank Audio Precision analyzer that I use.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

RMAA can be a really good way to get most of the info you need about a component but yeah it doesn't test everything and setting it up and using it correctly is the key. The following two links shows it's limitations and how to use it properly. Since it is free and the next step up is in the $5000 range you might want to try it out anyways. Once you know what you are doing, it works great.

http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/02/rightmark-audio-analyzer-rmaa.html

http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/02/testing-methods.html

you are welcome