Articles

Understanding Microphone Preamplifier Noise

A question we often hear in Technical Support goes something like this, “I’ve cranked up the gain of my [pick a Sound Devices product] microphone input and it sounds noisy. What gives?” The short answer is, “that is a meaningless ‘measurement’”. The long answer is far more interesting for those who want a better understanding of microphone preamplifiers. Performing a valid, meaningful measurement of microphone preamplifier input noise requires more than “cranking open” an input and listening in headphones.

Read The Full Article

MixPre-3 & MixPre-6 Maximizing Battery Runtime

The MixPre-3 and MixPre-6 are high performance audio instruments. These diminutive products offer audio quality that equals, and often exceeds, rack-mounted, mains-powered audio gear. To get to this level of performance they require more power than other products in their class. This article discusses different battery types and their effect on MixPre battery runtime.

Read The Full Article

Installing MixPre ASIO Driver for Windows

Video Tiptorial demonstrating how to install the Windows ASIO® driver on our MixPre Series recorders. In this video, we also explain why a user would need the ASIO driver and how to properly download it from Sound Devices’ website.

Read The Full Article

Multipath Interference and Diversity Switching

A significant challenge for engineers designing a wireless microphone system is addressing multipath interference. The Audio Ltd A10 digital wireless microphone system devotes significant signal processing resources to achieving robust performance in the presence of both short range and long range multipath. This note briefly explains what multipath is, why it is a problem, and […]

Read The Full Article

The Digital Wireless Advantage – Interference and Intermodulation in Multi-Channel Systems

The A10 Digital Wireless System has a significant advantage over analogue FM wireless and other digital wireless systems in its ability to reject interference. This arises because of three main reasons. The A10 uses two cascaded SAW filters. These precision RF filters are excellent at rejecting out-of-band signals. The SAW filters used in the A10 […]

Read The Full Article

Analogue v Digital – Companding

Analogue FM wireless system use a compandor circuit in the signal chain to maintain dynamic range. A compander first compresses audio at the transmitter by a fixed compression ratio before RF modulation. At the receiver the signal is then expanded by the same ratio after demodulation. Companders help overcome the noise limits inherent in narrow […]

Read The Full Article