Sonnox Oxford Limiter - Manual (Page 25)

9.4 Additional
Information 9 DITHER AND NOISE SHAPING
shaped dither actually gets to be heard directly, it will often sound quite strange and
intrusive and may detract from the listener’s experience of the programme. The most
effective and safest approach is to apply noise shaping at the minimum amount
necessary to render the noise inaudible within the conditions the programme is destined
to be auditioned.
9.4 Additional
Information
Generally speaking, a signal must be dithered if it is to be output via any form of reduced
bit- depth signal (for example, you are listening to it via a DAC) or to any limited resolution
media. The only time you can avoid dithering your material is if you know for certain that
dithering will be applied later (for example your material will be sent to a mastering
studio).
The Dither section, if enabled, must ‘hard clip’ your signal if it has not already been
controlled to legal sample values. This is because dither must be referenced to a digital
maximum, and any sample value beyond that maximum must be limited to the
maximum.
If there are active clips with Dither enabled, you should monitor your output levels on the
Output Meters with Dither Mode set to NONE and Recon Meter set to OFF. This will
indicate when the Dither section would have clipped the output signal. In combination
with the Peak Hold button, playing your entire track will show how far over unity your
maximum sample value is. The output meter LED’s are arranged to be exactly 0.5dB per
LED above 0dB. You can then use the output fader to compensate by the same amount.
Finally, you would normally revert Dither mode back to ON after doing this.
If you are preparing a file or a track that will be burned directly to CD, it is imperative that
you set the Oxford Limiter Dither mode to 16-bits. You can also experiment with the other
dither shapes to see if this improves the sound of your mix, especially if your tracks
contain particularly quiet material. Noise shaping reduces the level of dither noise in the
regions where the ear is most sensitive, at the expense of pushing the noise into regions
of less sensitivity.
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