Rules of Thumb for Music and Audio
As an engineer I like to use "rules of thumb" to make quick estimates that help to explain the physical world around me. These rules of thumb are e...
As an engineer I like to use "rules of thumb" to make quick estimates that help to explain the physical world around me. These rules of thumb are e...
Monty Montgomery takes us into the lab and uses a series of simple demonstrations to bust some very common myths about digital audio. Test your kno...
Many oversampled DACs clip when playing CDs. This clipping is caused by a hidden defect in most oversampled DACs. Discover the cause and the cure. ...
The Benchmark DAC2 is an audio digital-to-analog converter. This application note explains the proprietary digital processing inside Benchmark's DA...
A/B and A/B/X listening tests are important methods of comparing two audio sources or two audio components. In the studio an engineer may want to s...
We may eventually add MQA to the list of audio formats that have come and gone. This list includes HDCD, DVDA, and DSD. All three of these claimed ...
This myth goes something like this: "DSD provides a simple and direct digital path between the A/D and D/A, and DSD is simpler than PCM" - False! ...
Many people have asked if the DAC2 sounds better or different than the DAC1. This paper examines the subtle audible differences between the DAC1 an...
Blu-ray disks may seem like an ideal solution for the distribution of high-resolution audio, but there are problems. It is not easy to gain access ...
Digital recordings are available in a variety of sample rates. What are the advantages of higher sample rates? How high a sample rate do we really ...
We now have 16-bit CDs and 24-bit high-resolution recordings available to us. What are the advantages of a 24-bit word length? Are 24-bit recording...
All A/D converters have two forms of jitter: Conversion clock jitter, and interface jitter. These two forms of jitter are very different and have ...
"Low-Resolution Hardware Cannot Deliver High-Resolution Audio" The music industry is struggling to define High-Resolution Audio or "HRA". In doing ...
This myth goes something like this: "Analog audio has infinite amplitude resolution." "Digital audio is limited to a finite number of steps." "24-b...
A "Mini" Server for High-Resolution Audio Mastering and Recording Engineer, Mark Waldrep (A.K.A. Dr. AIX) recently published an excellent applicati...
Why is the CE Mark Important? Many electronic products have a "CE" mark affixed to the product. This mark is mandatory in European markets, but i...
Intersample Overs - Part 2 In my last post, "Audio that Goes to 11", I made the bold assertion that most of our audio recordings contain peaks t...
Intersample Overs - Part 1 It's on your iPhone, your Android and your computer. It's even on those CDs you put on a shelf somewhere. Audio that ...