Digital audio · Sampling

ADC → DAC round trip

For content below fₛ/2, sampling, holding and sinc-filtering returns the input waveform exactly, and the only permanent loss is the quantization error, which every added bit pushes about 6 dB lower.

Builds on Nyquist fold, Bit depth buckets, Sinc interpolation. Taught in Waves & Buckets.

Four animated panels run a two-component wave through the whole pipeline: analog in, the ADC's samples, the quantized and held staircase, and the reconstruction-filtered output. Lower the sample rate below twice the top component and the output aliases; lower the bit depth and quantization noise appears. Two buttons play the same pipeline 100× faster (220 + 470 Hz) so both failures are audible.

The claim above is what this widget demonstrates. Disagree with it?

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