Phase Design releases TC series acoustic test chambers

Phase Design is pleased to announce the release of the TC series acoustic test chambers for general sale throughout the audio industry. Phil Bunch, president of Phase Group was quoted as saying “The TC-1 and TC-2 acoustic testing chambers have previously been available only to subscription clients of our design and QA divisions. We have seen an enormous amount of interest in improved test cabinets and acoustic chambers over the last 18 months, so the decision was made to refine the design and develop for standardized manufacturing. This development included standardization of all the mechanical elements of the cabinet plus extensive refinement to the process of adding the acoustic treatments to the inside of the cabinet. At this time, there are approximately 35 of the cabinets in service; mostly in Asia and the USA.

We believe that opening up the sales of standardized test cabinets, particularly our TC-2 will enhance the success of many engineers and companies in the audio industry through the improvement of acoustic testing. The cabinets are not intended to deliver reference or lab measurements; they are for use at end of line or other production testing environments where we typically see wild variations in the stability of the measurements. The primary issue there is the resulting false negative and false positive measurements which in turn lead to discrepancies and disagreements between suppliers and customers.

The Phase staff have put tremendous effort into the development of the TC-2 and are particularly proud of what we have achieved. We can reliably reproduce cabinet to cabinet measurements within fractions of a dB variation of each other, even hundreds or thousands of miles away. We are also very pleased with the capability of the cabinet systems in regard to reduction of measurement error. Not only have we demonstrated the stability of the TC platforms in the lab, we have literally millions of tests having been completed in the intended operational environment- factory floors throughout Asia and QA inspectors in the USA. We have found that employing the TC-2 on the supplier’s end of line testing and one at the receiving end IQC department (either in Asia or elsewhere) results in astonishing reductions in test discrepancies. While this is difficult to quantify, the worst case we have seen over the course of the last 18 months is approximately 1 discrepancy out of an average of 12,000 units tested between 2 competing facilities in China. We have other clients using the older TC-1 platform who have reported zero defects over the course of a three year span.

Please contact Phase Design for more information about the TC-1 and TC-2 acoustic chambers.