Emphasis (telecommunications)

Typically, prior to some process, such as transmission over cable, or recording to phonograph record or tape, the input frequency range most susceptible to noise is boosted. This is referred to as "pre-emphasis" – "pre-" the process the signal will undergo. Later, when the signal is received, or retrieved from recording, the reverse transformation is applied ("de-emphasis") so that the output accurately reproduces the original input. Any noise added by transmission or record/playback, to the frequency range previously boosted, is now attenuated in the de-emphasis stage.

The high-frequency signal components are emphasized to produce a more equal modulation index for the transmitted frequency spectrum, and therefore a better signal-to-noise ratio for the entire frequency range.

Emphasis is commonly used in FM broadcasting and vinyl (e.g. LP) records.

In processing electronic audio signals, pre-emphasis refers to a system process designed to increase (within a frequency band) the magnitude of some (usually higher) frequencies with respect to the magnitude of other (usually lower) frequencies in order to improve the overall signal-to-noise ratio by minimizing the adverse effects of such phenomena as attenuation distortion or saturation of recording media in subsequent parts of the system. The mirror operation is called de-emphasis, and the system as a whole is called emphasis.

Pre-emphasis is achieved with a pre-emphasis network which is essentially a calibrated filter. The frequency response is decided by special time constants. The cutoff frequency can be calculated from that value.

Pre-emphasis is commonly used in telecommunications, digital audio recording, record cutting, in FM broadcasting transmissions, and in displaying the spectrograms of speech signals.

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