Technical Paper 3.

HD Audio: ‘Ringing’
why it is undesirable and how to address it

Definition:
Ringing: – verb (used without object)
Post-Ringing
Post-Ringing is found in mother nature, with most
1. to give forth a clear resonant sound, as a
musical instruments (e.g. Piano, violin etc.) and is
bell when struck: The doorbell rang twice.
quite often found in HiFi systems. It is quite
2. to be filled with sound; re echo with
literally, the delayed release of energy from the
sound.
leading edge of a pulse. The causes can be
3. to have the sensation of a continued
mechanical or electrical. Many moving coil
humming sound.
cartridges when playing vinyl exhibit strong ringing

Ringing (electronics): ringing artifacts are artifacts

(from the stylus tip/vinyl resonance). Moving Coil

Step-up Transformers and Transformer Volume

that appear as spurious signals ("rings") near sharp
Controls may also show appreciable ringing. Even
transitions (transients) in a signal. Visually, they
recording microphones have resonances that can
appear as "rings" near edges; audibly, they appear
induce ringing when exposed to sharp transients.
as "echos" near transients

So the presence of some “Post-Ringing” in an

BEFORE the transient it is called Pre-Ringing;
audio component as such, does not necessarily
AFTER the transient it is called call Post-Ringing.
disqualify it from offering high sound quality

(though an excess of ringing at frequencies close

This only has Post-Ringing.

to the audible range can cause problems).

Pre-Ringing
Only systems with digital filters (i.e. digital

electronics) may exhibit Pre-Ringing. But with Pre-

Ringing, the situation is somewhat different; Pre-

Ringing is something that appears to violate the

fundamental law of the universe that an effect is

Source: AMR preceded by its cause, called causality. In Pre-

Ringing, the effect (ringing) happens BEFORE the

This has both Pre and Post-Ringing.
cause (the transient).

For those who fear the universe will fold in on

itself and end tomorrow, now that the law of

causality has been so rudely violated by the

designers of digital filters, rest safely. This violation

is only apparent, not actual; causality as such is

preserved in time. In actual fact, the bulk of the

“cause”, namely the complete transient is

DELAYED and only a small fraction of its energy is

leaked at the instant the transient should have

been, the rest progressively “oscillates up” to the

Source: AMR transient.

1
To illustrate this more clearly, imagine a film (with Pre-Ringing and Post-Ringing at a frequency that is
sound) of one guitar string being plucked and the just outside (above) the audible range (22.05KHz
trace of the signal on an oscilloscope, shown or a little lower depending on the precise filter
below is the oscilloscope trace: design). This then gives this picture:

At the instant of plucking the string there is sharp

peak in the signal, the characteristic sound of the
string being struck, followed by the sound (ringing)
of the string’s tuned frequency which slowly decays
into nothing.

Source: AMR

The clean and “square” green pulse represents the

1
original signal/music transient , the red is the
output from the digital filter. Notice how the
ringing starts at the instant of the pulse and how
the signal from the digital filter slowly “rings up” to
a substantial fraction of the signal before the
transient, which has turned into a spike, not a
Source: AMR clean pulse.

To understand Pre-Ringing, just run the film in

reverse (ignore the dotted lines). Our string starts
to vibrate slowly and builds up in level and only
then comes the sound of the string being struck,
basically as shown above

Source: AMR

Reverse Guitar Pluck?

Can you imagine how a guitar would sound like
that? Pre-Ringing is literally counter to nature and
it is severely different from our experience of
natural sounds, which may include Post-Ringing,
but NEVER Pre-Ringing. Pre-Ringing is just plain
bad news for audio playback and has long
contributed to the “Digital” sound of the CD
medium. Never has the phrase “wrong note at the
wrong time” been more appropriate.

Moreover, the common “Brickwall” digital filters

for CD have absolutely MASSIVE amounts of both 1
The music signal is much more akin to a transient than a

steady state sine wave often used in the laboratory.

2
New Digital Filter Technologies
Since the early days, Digital Filter Technology has

come a long way and within the last 10 years, three

relatively new and innovative technologies

developed for the digital filter have come to the

fore.

Signal
Traditional Approach New Technology Improvements
Characteristic

Linear Phase Minimum Phase

1. Phase Eliminates Pre-Ringing
(No phase distortion) (Some phase distortion)

Apodising
Half-band
<0.5 Sampling Frequency Attenuates the Analogue-to-Digital
Cut-off 0.5 Sampling Frequency
2. (e.g. for 44.1kHz sampling rate, the Converter’s ringing embedded in
Frequency (e.g. for 44.1kHz sampling rate, the
cut-off frequency is at ~19KHz recordings
cut-off frequency is at 22.05kHz).
instead of 22.05kHz).

Sharp/Steep Roll-off Reduces ringing magnitude and

3. Roll-off Soft Roll-off
Brickwall length in time

Source: AMR

AMR has made the above new technologies

available on the DP-777 within different filter

settings.

Digital Filter Technology

Model Filter Name Minimum Phase Apodising Soft Roll-Off

2
AMR DP-777 Organic
Apodising 8083 -

MP Listen -

Traditional - - -

Source: AMR

Under the DP-777’s HD 32-Bit DAC’s ‘Organic’

Digital Filter, it is the only high-definition DAC

chipset that addresses all three crucial areas of

ringing.

Pat Wayne
Director – Engineering

e: patw@amr-audio.co.uk

t: +44 (0) 870 420 550

2
DP-777’s default Digital Filter for HD Audio.
3
This Digital Filter is available only on 44/48kHz with the HD 32 bit DAC, not available for 88.2/96kHz or higher.