From the course: Digital Audio Foundations
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Dither
- If it were not for a technique called dither, digital audio at very low amplitudes would run into a problem called quantization distortion. This mainly happens to low amplitude signals, which are too small compared to the space between available quantization levels. Let me explain. For example, if we measure this pencil, which is like a relatively high amplitude signal, it doesn't matter too much if the measurement is quantized to six inches or six and an eighth inches. The quantization distortion, that is the difference between the original signal and the measured value, is relatively very small. But at low amplitudes, quantization distortion can be a big deal. For example, if we're measuring this paper clip, which is like a fairly low amplitude signal, the difference between calling it 3/16 inches or one-quarter inch is relatively large. And since the paper clip is actually in between those two, choosing either value would introduce a fairly large rounding error relative to the…
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