Henry66;695052 Wrote: > So how does this work? Does the amplifier send "jagged" (digitized) > waveforms out the speaker terminals, and the speaker coil itself > effectively does the D-to-A conversion by simply smoothing out the > jaggies?
*cough* There are no "jagged waveforms". This is an urban myth. Those images of staircase waveforms on the Internet are all part of the "great lie about how digital audio actually works". Each sample contains mathematical information ( to be precise, a numeic value) that when sequentially replayed at the correct frequency describe exactly how the frequency and amplitude of the original source vary over time. In order to turn that information into an analogue form that can be heard via speakers, each sample is converted to a voltage. The number of possible values of that voltage is determined by the bit-depth... 16-bit=65,000 values. the discrete sample voltages pass through a filter which integrates the values over time, at which point they become an analogue waveform. Normally this all happens inside the DAC or CD player or whatever. In amps like the NAD (and there are many others) the conversion happens very very close to the speaker terminals. At no point ever does the "jagged waveform" actually exist as an analogue representation of the signal... That is just a metaphor to explain how things work. Unfortunately it has lead to all sorts of misunderstandings and religious beliefs about analogue vs digital. For example, there is NO missing information between each step... For a signal frequency less than half the sampling frequency, capturing each step faster does NOT capture more information... The theory behind this has given us the mobile phone, HDTV, transatlantic multplex cables, satellite comms and the Internet (amongst many other things)... Technologies that are far more demanding than reproducing audio frequencies from 20hz to 20kHz from a CD or music file. Erm, so the answer to your question is no, there are no jagged waveforms so they can't be sent anywhere. Digital information in the form of bitstreams are sent to the amp and nice analogue waveforms are produced from them right at the speaker terminals. -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... Touch(wired/W7)+Teddy Pardo PSU - Audiolense 3.3/2.0+INGUZ DRC - MF M1 DAC - Linn 5103 - full Aktiv 5.1 system (6x LK140's, ESPEK/TRIKAN/KATAN/SEIZMIK 10.5), Pekin Tuner, Townsend Supertweeters,VdH Toslink,Kimber 8TC Speaker & Chord Signature Plus Interconnect cables Stax4070+SRM7/II phones Kitchen Boom, Outdoors: SB Radio, Harmony One remote for everything. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=94054 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
