## The 1 bit = 6 dB Rule of Thumb, Revisited.

March 28, 2017

Almost ten years ago I wrote an entry about the “1 bit = 6 dB” rule of thumb. This rule states that for each bit you add to a signal, you add 6 dB of signal to noise ratio.

The first derivation I gave then was focused on the noise, where the noise maximal amplitude was proportional to the amplitude represented by the last bit of the (encoded) signal. Let’s now derive it from the most significant bit of the signal to its least significant.

## Lossless Coding of CD Audio

January 17, 2012

Once upon a time, I discussed how to pick bit-rate for MP3, while considering re-ripping all my CDs. But if I’m to re-rip everything, I might as well do it one last time and use lossless compression.

In this post, we’ll discuss the simple script I cooked up to do just that, and a bit on how Flac works, and how it compares to MP3.

## Channel Mixing and Pseudo-Inverses

December 29, 2009

Let’s say we want to mix three channels onto two because the communication device has only two available channels but we still want to emulate a three channel link. If we can afford coding, then it’s not a problem because we can build our own protocol so add any number of channels using a structured data stream. But what if we cannot control the channel coding at all? In CDs, for example, there’s no coding: there are two channels encoded in PCM and a standard CD player wouldn’t understand the sound if it was encoded otherwise.

The solution is to mix the three channels in a quasi-reversible way, and in a way that the two channels can be listened to without much interference. One possible way is to mix the third channel is to use a phase-dependant encoding. Early “quadraphonic” audio systems did something quite similar. You can also use a plain time-domain “mixing matrix” to mix the three channels onto two. Quite expygeously, let us choose the matrix:

$M=\left[~\begin{array}{ccc} \frac{2}{3} &0&\frac{1}{3}\\ 0 &\frac{2}{3}&\frac{1}{3}\end{array}~\right]$

## Everyday Origami

October 21, 2008

Ever found yourself with a CD or DVD without a sleeve to protect it? In this post, I present a fun and simple origami solution to the sleeveless DVD problem. While origami is often associated with sophistication and lots of spare time, it can serve in our daily lives, sometimes in surprising ways.

Origami, (from the japanese 折り紙, literally, folding (oru) paper (kami)), is a notoriously difficult art form where pieces of paper are folded—while avoiding cuts whenever possible—in various shapes of animals or other objects, an art sometimes pushed to incredible levels.