Category Archives: How Things Work

Over-rotating CDs

Posted on February 16, 2016 by Stephen Dawson

Ages ago I mentioned here the Mythbusters episode where they destroyed a CD by spinning it way too fast (23 kamagra pills Buy Lipitor online without prescription ,000 RPM). Since 2005 video equipment has gotten a great deal better. The … Continue reading →

Posted in CD, How Things Work, Testing | 1 Comment

The Magic of Dither

Posted on February 4, 2015 by Stephen Dawson

(I have written an article for Australian HI-FI suggesting that a good way to start to understand the differences between 16 and 24 bit audio is to listen to the differences between 8 bit and 16 bit audio. To that … Continue reading →

Posted in Codecs, Digital Audio, How Things Work | 1 Comment

Analogue vs Digital signal generation

Posted on January 30, 2015 by Stephen Dawson

In 1997, just starting out on this writing stuff, I decided I needed an audio signal generator. Off-the-shelf ones, to the extent that they were available at all, were way too expensive for me. However back in those days there … Continue reading →

Posted in How Things Work, Testing | 3 Comments

3D display brightness

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Stephen Dawson

Reader Ryan has pointed me at a slightly old (in 3D talk, August 2011 is old) discussion of Active vs Passive 3D technology in Audioholics. Many of the points it makes are well founded, but it also demonstrates a misunderstanding … Continue reading →

Posted in 3D, How Things Work, Video | 2 Comments

Two3 many bits used to encode sound? I say yes!

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Stephen Dawson

A while back I analysed the lossless audio encoding of a few hundred Blu-ray discs. The aim? To find out how efficient lossless compression of 24 bit audio was compared to 16 bit. The results were not entirely unexpected. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Admin, Audio, How Things Work, Imperfect perception | Leave a comment

Burning In

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

Brian Dunning’s usually excellent Skeptoid podcast this week contains a blooper on the subject of burning in equipment. This podcast was a collection of short answers to student questions, one of which was: Hello Brian, my name is Julian and … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, How Things Work, Imperfect perception, Mysticism | 9 Comments

How 3D TV Works

Posted on July 24, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

[This was published in Sound and Image magazine last year] In one sense, the developers of Blu-ray 3D had it easy. They were allowed invent a new video standard, essentially doubling the amount of video data compared to standard Blu-ray. … Continue reading →

Posted in 3D, DTV, HDTV, How Things Work, Page | Leave a comment

Dithering again

Posted on June 21, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

Years ago I put up a piece I had published in Australian HI-FI on ‘dither’, the technique which, theoretically at least, can reduce objectionable distortion in digital audio recordings. Long since forgotten, I imagine, but just in case anyone is … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, How Things Work | Leave a comment

Thank goodness for early adopters

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

Matt Ridley has an interesting article up on his site in which he extols the virtues of the cost cutters. His point is that while the inventor of something or other usually gets the credit, its the business people who … Continue reading →

Posted in How Things Work, Misc | Leave a comment

Bit perfect digital audio

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

In a comment to an earlier post, Fredrick mentioned that he had ‘read an interesting article by Chris Connaker at computeraudiophile.com. While testing Asus sound cards, he believes he has achieved bit perfect playback that still sounds awful’. A little … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Computer, How Things Work | 5 Comments