Owner`s manual

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Balanced signals connect with either XLR connectors or TRS (tip, ring
sleeve) connectors. Mia uses TRS connectors for connecting balanced line
level signals.
The three sections of a TRS connector are used to transmit the three
components of a balanced signal (T = plus, R = minus, S = ground). Mia
will also accommodate the two conductor unbalanced style connector.
Dynamic Range
Dynamic range represents the difference between the maximum signal that
can be recorded and the “noise floor”, or level of noise with no signal
present. A system with a high dynamic range will be quieter than one with a
lower dynamic range. Dynamic range is a very important specification and
Mia uses converters that have very high dynamic range.
Theoretically, a 24-bit system has a dynamic range of 144dB and a 16-bit
system has a dynamic range of 96dB. Two questions immediately come to
mind:
1) Why does Mia only have a dynamic range of 106dB?
2) For mastering 16-bit CDs with a dynamic range of 96dB, isn’t
anything more than 96dB just overkill?
First, today’s analog-to-digital converters typically produce a full-scale
input voltage with an input of +7dBu. If they were to have 144dB of
dynamic range, they would have to be capable of resolving signals as small
as –137 dBu (7dBu – 144dBu) or approximately 10 nano-volts. That’s 10
one-billionths of a volt! Transistors and resistors produce noise in this
range just by having electrons moving around due to heat. Even if the
converters could be perfectly designed to read these levels, the low noise
requirements of the surrounding circuitry such as power supplies and
amplifiers would be so stringent that they would either be impossible or too
expensive to build.