Owner`s manual

12
Madrigal engineers have developed a proprietary buffer management
scheme which reduces reproduced jitter to less than 20 picoseconds
while maintaining the synchronization of sound and picture in movies.
It employs a buffer large enough to absorb the jitter found in trans-
ports of reasonable quality, yet small enough to have imperceptible de-
lay. The rate at which data is released from the FIFO buffer is con-
trolled by software to track the long-term data rate of the incoming sig-
nal, allowing the buffer to absorb all the short-term variations which
cause sonic degradation. This approach yields a “smart” FIFO buffering
scheme which rejects virtually all incoming jitter without requiring an
enormous buffer and suffering the consequent audible delay. It also
avoids the sonic penalties associated with the various strategies used
when a buffer overflows or empties.
Superior isolation
between sources
One of the advantages of a separate digital audio processor is that you
can take the money which might have otherwise been spent on several
built-in D/A converters and put it into one, superior processor which
will enhance the performance of all the transports with which it is
used. Ironically, many outboard processors fail to live up to this poten-
tial due to interference between their various digital inputs.
The Nº360 provides outstanding isolation between its inputs, realizing
the full potential of the various digital transports with which it is used.
In fact, all unselected digital inputs are disabled. As a result, the selected
input effectively has the Nº360 “all to itself” for its conversion to ana-
log.