SMPTE Tutorial—Revised Reprint: Basic Digital Audio Test Techniques
While there are several digital audio formats in use today, one of the most widely adopted is the Audio Engineering Society/European Broadcast Union (AES/EBU) format. This standard supports a two-channel multiplexed digital audio stream with embedded clock and data in a serial format. The location of rising and falling edges of AES bits signify their state (1 or 0) versus signal levels driving transitions as in TTL or CMOS logic. The AES/EBU format supports signal resolution up to 24 bits, with 16-bit (consumer version) and 20-bit (professional version) being the most often used. It also supports sample rates between 32 and 48 kHz that equate to a maximum data rate of 3.072 MHz. Central to analyzing and troubleshooting this type of digital audio data stream is understanding the concepts of AES/EBU frames and subframes.
- Print ISSN
- 0036-1682
- Published
- 1995-10
- Content type
- Information
- DOI
- 10.5594/J17664