Is High-Frequency Intermodulation Distortion a Significant Factor in High-Resolution Audio?

Stuart, J. Robert; Hollinshead, Richard; Capp, Michael

doi:10.17743/jaes.2018.0060

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Raising Fs has the benefit of reducing the audio-band distortion while "whitening" the error because the signal/Nyquist frequency ratio is lower. 5 Comparing the two figures we can also see that the RPDF and TPDF dither noise spectral levels are 3 dB lower at the higher rate. Fig.…”

Section: Additive Dithermentioning

confidence: 77%

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The Gentle Art of Dithering

Stuart¹,

Craven²

2019

J. Audio Eng. Soc.

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On the topic of high-performance audio, there remains disagreement over the ways in which sound quality might benefit from higher sample-rates or bit-depths in a digital path. Here we consider the hypothesis that if a digital pathway includes any unintended or undithered quantizations, then several types of errors are imprinted, whose nature will change with increased sampling rate and wordsize. Although dither methods for ameliorating quantization error have been well understood in the literature for some time, these insights are not always applied in practice. We observe that it can be rare for a performance to be captured, produced, and played back with a chain "flawless" in this regard. The paper includes an overview of digital sampling and quantization with additive, subtractive, and noise-shaped dither. The paper also discusses more advanced topics such as cascaded quantizers, fixed and floatingpoint arithmetic, and time-domain aspects of quantization errors. The paper concludes with guidelines and recommendations, including for the design of listening tests. SETTING THE SCENEIn [1] we suggested that "High Resolution" should be considered an attribute of a complete system in the analog domain (from microphone to loudspeaker)-rather than of the distributed signal or a specific technology.If the system includes a digital path, higher sample rates enable wider bandwidth and it has been questioned whether a listening preference for wider-bandwidth systems could result from the reproduction of signal frequencies above 20 kHz, or alternatively, whether it might arise as a side-effect of filtering in the chain, such as may be encountered when constraining bandwidth to meet a Nyquist criterion.In [3] and [4] we introduced a hierarchical method by which high resolution, defined as clear separation of temporal events, can be delivered efficiently. Prior to this there has been a tendency to describe resolution in the digital domain by the proxies of sample rate, bandwidth or data rate. We can't listen to a digital file without first converting it back to analog; this paper continues to consider the entire chain.A third frequency-domain hypothesis suggests that wider-band signals may cause misbehavior in playback systems (shown to be improbable in [5]).A fourth possibility, raised here, is that if a chain has defective quantizations in any part of a digital path, then the resulting errors (manifesting as distortion and/or modulation noise) also change with the inter-related variables of sampling rate and wordsize, with collateral consequences. Outline of This PaperThis paper is both a tutorial and call to action, reminding about some nowadays-overlooked fundamentals.Sec. 1 introduces the topic of modulation noise, a type of system error that can disturb or alter perception of background noise, or spatial or low-frequency elements.Sec. 2 reviews quantization distortion and in Sec. 3 we recap the properties of additive, subtractive, and noise-shaped dither, including maintaining linearity to levels well below the LSB (le...

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Section: Additive Dithermentioning

confidence: 77%

“…A third frequency-domain hypothesis suggests that wider-band signals may cause misbehavior in playback systems (shown to be improbable in [5]).…”

Section: Setting the Scenementioning

confidence: 99%

The Gentle Art of Dithering

Stuart¹,

Craven²

2019

J. Audio Eng. Soc.

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“…IMD originating from the interaction of system nonlinearities with tone pairs, where at least one of the pair originates in the ultrasonic or near ultrasonic region, has been questioned as a potential source of audible distortion with wider bandwidth waveforms. Recent studies have not found evidence supporting this idea [72,73].…”

Section: Hardwarementioning

confidence: 94%

“…Except in cases with very high amplitude stimuli [70,71] where thresholds can be measured for some listeners, literature studies have shown negative results [72]. A recent study aimed primarily at the audibility of intermodulation distortion (IMD) also confirmed the non-audibility of the ultrasonic tone pairs used to generate the IMD [73].…”

Section: Ultrasonic Frequenciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

High-Resolution Audio: A History and Perspective

Melchior¹

2019

J. Audio Eng. Soc.

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Exploration of audio at digital resolutions higher than CD began in the late 1980s, arising from a wealth of interdependent sources including listening experiences, rapid technical advances, an appreciation of psychoacoustics, acoustic measurement, and an ethos that music recording should capture the full range of audible sound. High resolution formats developed and were incorporated into successive generations of distribution media from DVD, SACD, and Blu-ray to internet downloads and now to streaming. A continuing debate throughout has been whether, and especially why, higher resolutions should be audibly superior. This review covers the history of the period, focusing on the main directions that drove experimentation and development up to the present, and then seeks to explain the current view that, beyond dynamic range, the most likely technical sources differentiating the sound of digital formats are the filtering chains that are ubiquitous in traditional digital sampling and reconstruction of analog music sources.

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“…However, an audible 14 kHz harmonic can be generated due to the ear's compressive non-linear response [73]: y ∝ x -bx 2 (3) where x is the "input" amplitude of the incident sound, y is the "output" amplitude at the cochlear BM, and the constant b ~0.01. Potentially, intermodulation distortion (IMD) in the audio chain [74] can also produce 14 kHz. However, this contamination was ascertained to be negligible by directly measuring the listener-position acoustic waveform and spectrum (Fig.…”

Section: Heterodyne Detection Of Ultrasoundmentioning

confidence: 99%

The human auditory system and audio

Kunchur¹

2023

Applied Acoustics

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Is High-Frequency Intermodulation Distortion a Significant Factor in High-Resolution Audio?

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

The Gentle Art of Dithering

The Gentle Art of Dithering

High-Resolution Audio: A History and Perspective

The human auditory system and audio

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