mlsstl wrote: > You're right, -65 dB in virtually any analog format is going to be > nothing but noise and distortion. 40% distortion would be dang good > looking in comparison.
Just to clarify, a proper digital signal *at any level* is 100% free of distortion. It may be have lots of random noise, but there are no added imperfections that are correlated with the signal, IOW there is no, nine, nichts, distortion. The false procedure that golden ears (example: John Atkinson) uses to create the appearance of distortion is to use an undithered or improperly dithered test signal. Here is an example: http://www.stereophile.com/content/msb-technology-analog-dac-da-converter-and-analog-power-base-power-supply-measurements#ymkqR6bW1PHHkfTl.97 20476 "Fig.6 MSB Analog DAC, waveform of undithered 1kHz sinewave at 90.31dBFS, 16-bit data (left channel blue, right red). Read more at http://www.stereophile.com/content/msb-technology-analog-dac-da-converter-and-analog-power-base-power-supply-measurements."; Undithered digital signals are not proper digital signals, as adding sufficient dither is a defined part of the digitizing process. They can only exist as synthetic numeric curiosities, because when you digitize a real world analog signal, it will either already contain enough natural noise to dither it. If this is one of the odd situations where enough natural noise is present the person doing the production work is supposed to add it himself. Most modern ADCs do this automatically. If the signal is properly dithered, the low level signal will look like this: 20475. Note that there is noise, but no distortion. +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Filename: 414MSBfig06.jpg | |Download: http://forums.slimdevices.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=20476| +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ arnyk's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=64365 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=105507
_______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
