AES Berlin 2017
Tutorial T05
Saturday, May 20, 11:00 — 11:45 (Salon 4+5 London)
T05 - Bulletproof, High Quality Digital Audio Transmission: Practical Design Considerations and Standards Revisions for Reliable High Quality Digital Audio
Jon D. Paul (Presenter)
Engineers assume that all digital transmission must be perfect regardless of source, cable, destination or sample rate. However, in professional, cinema, and broadcast markets there are cases of signal dropouts, link failures, and even transient damage to the transceivers. The causes and solutions are in the design and choice of components and cables, as well as the digital audio physical layer standards (AES 3-4, AES 3id).
The tutorial summarizes 28 years of experience, with observations and test results for many types of cables, revealing huge variations in cable transmission and received spectra and eye- patterns. The cables, interface circuits, and components, such as transformers, and their effect on the quality and reliability of transmission are reviewed. The tutorial includes discussion of balanced to unbalanced conversion, shielding, transient protection and EMI susceptibility and compliance.
Finally, we suggest modifications to the standards, for instance frame sync, rise times, bandwidths, eye pattern masks, and reference designs.