AES E-Library

Digital Dither

We investigate the consequences of the rounding or truncation to a fixed word length of the output of a digital signal processor, such as a digital editor, mixer, equalizer, filter, or sampling standards converter, using fixed-point arithmetic. The signal input to the processor is assumed to be in digital form, and have been quantized with proper analog dither applied. Quantization artifacts are thus of a benign nature in the input signal, and our concern is that the arithmetical manipulations to which these digital words are subjected in the digital signal processor should not introduce any quantization distortion or noise modulation. We show that the use of appropriate digital dithering before final rounding or truncation can keep the input signal free of such degradation even when subjected to severe operations such as gain fading. The penalty is a small increase in the broadband noise level.

Authors: Lipshitz, Stanley P.; Vanderkooy, John
Affiliation: Audio Research Group, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
AES Convention:81 (November 1986) Paper Number:2412 Import into BibTeX
Subject:Audio Recording

Click to purchase paper or login as an AES member. If your company or school subscribes to the E-Library then switch to the institutional version. If you are not an AES member and would like to subscribe to the E-Library then Join the AES!

This paper costs $20 for non-members, $5 for AES members and is free for E-Library subscribers.

Learn more about the AES E-Library

E-Library Location: (CD aes11)   /pp8690/pp8611/2508.pdf

Start a discussion about this paper!