Audio Systems & Signal Chains#

Putting the pieces together. Individual blocks — preamps, filters, converters, DSP stages — each have well-defined behavior in isolation. But a system is a chain, and the chain’s performance depends on how blocks interact: impedance mismatches, gain distribution, noise accumulation, and latency budgets all emerge at the system level.

This section is about thinking in signal chains rather than individual components. The same principles apply whether the target is an audio recording path, an instrumentation system, or a feedback control loop.

What This Section Covers#

• Gain Staging — Headroom, noise floor, operating levels, and gain distribution: why where the gain lives matters.
• Latency & Throughput — Sources of latency, block size tradeoffs, and real-time constraints in signal processing systems.
• Multistage Signal Chains — Signal flow diagrams, noise accumulation, impedance interactions, and finding the weakest link.