Rational Acoustics has announced the release of Smaart v8.5, the fifth major version update to its flagship Smaart v8 measurement platform that includes an extensive overhaul of Impulse Response Mode as well as a new “Advanced Delay Finder” dialog, new features and improvements to SPL and Transfer Function measurements, and various bug and crash fixes. This is a major update and is recommended (and free) for all Smaart v8 users.
The primary focus of the Impulse Response Mode overhaul in v8.5 is to allow for measuring, viewing, and manipulating multiple IR measurements simultaneously. In previous versions, only one IR measurement could be managed at a time. The user experience in the new v8.5 IR Mode is now similar, in many ways, to the existing Real Time Mode, making it easier to capture and analyze multiple Impulse Responses. Other improvements to the IR Mode include new IR Data Bar, IR Plot Legend, IR Spectrograph controls and improved Speech Transmission Index (STI) calculation dialog.
“The v8.5 development cycle allowed us to take a deep dive into Smaart’s acoustical analysis toolset and really focus on updating it for modern impulse response measurement and analysis workflows.” says Rational Acoustics President Jamie Anderson. “Our goal was to have the functionality of IR Mode match the power and efficiency our users have come to expect from Smaart’s Real Time Mode. And of course, while we were at it, we added tons of other new features and improvements to the rest of the program, because we can’t help ourselves.”
SPL measurement improvements include the ability to create SPL log file summary reports in color pdf format and the option to automatically open an email client and attach the SPL report upon generation. Additions and improvements to alarm levels and indicators as well as logging and Leq measurement options have also been included.
The new Advanced Delay Finder dialog is a modeless window that contains more advanced filtering and analysis capabilities than the prior versions, allowing for octave-filtered delay measurements with user-adjustable center frequencies.
Also of note are new features to support the M-Noise Procedure — currently under AES Standards development — for measuring loudspeaker maximum linear sound levels, including MTW+, an enhanced version of the MTW (Multi Time Window) Transfer Function process that eliminates high frequency data gaps in the current MTW calculation pipeline, an unweighted Peak sound level metric as well as support for importing Meyer Sound SIM 3 project (.bin) files via the “Import ASCII” dialog.
For a complete list of the new and improved features in Smaart v8.5 (including bug fixes) as well as instructions for updating, users can consult the Smaart v8.5 Release Overview, available here (PDF) and in the Support section of the Rational Acoustics website. Smaart v8.5’s internal Help Files have also been updated with a full revision history, detailed function descriptions, and a listing of all accelerator (hot) keys.
