APPENDIX D:
ABOUT DIGITAL I/O
ABOUT S/PDIF
S/PDIF (Sony/Phillips Digital Interface) A digital audio format
generally recognized as the consumer standard for digital
audio transfer
ABOUT AES/EBU
AES/EBU (Audio Engineering Society / European Broadcast
Union standard) is accepted as the professional standard in
digital audio transfer. AES/EBU requires the use of a bal-
anced XLR cable with an impedance of 110 W. The
AES/EBU format is 24-bit. AES/EBU is often chosen over
S/PDIF because of its superior performance in jitter and sig-
nal/noise ratio. AES/EBU works with a higher voltage level
than S/PDIF.
ABOUT DITHERING
Going from one type of bit resolution to a lower resolution,
e.g. from 24 bit to 16 bit, you are losing 8 bits of information.
The process of cutting off bits is called truncation and it intro-
duces digital distortion of low level signals, due to the lack of
complete signal information. To compensate for this, dither
must be applied. Dither is a small amount of filtered noise
that generates randomization at the noise floor ensuring a
less distorted low level signal.
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VoicePrism Plus User Manual
Appendix D: About Digital I/O
