Definition of dither

The word "dither" originally referred to the trembling or shaking of a microphone caused by the excitement of singers or musicians during live performances. This trembling would sometimes be picked up by the audio equipment, resulting in a notable distortion in the audio signal. In the context of digital audio, dither is added to ensure a smooth and smooth transition between different levels of audio signals, particularly during digital-to-analog conversion. When audio signals are converted from the digital format to analog, they may suffer from quantization errors. This occurs because the signal can only take on specific values due to the limited number of people used to represent the audio signal. As a result, the digital audio may sound grainy or harsh when played through a loudspeaker. To combat these quantization errors, a little bit of random noise, called dither, is added before the signal is converted. This adds a slight amount of noise to the digital signal, causing it to fluctuate between two levels, making it less likely to quantize error. The result is a smoother and more natural sound, particularly at low volume levels. So, although it might seem counterintuitive to add noise to reduce distortion, dither has become an essential technique in digital audio processing to ensure better sound quality.