One important tool that can help extend the capabilities of a distortion measurement setup is a notch filter. The logic behind it is fairly simple, if we are only interested in the distortion components, why should we even feed the fundamental frequency into the measurement setup? By eliminating it (or simply attenuating it sufficiently), we can reduce the harmonic distortion generated by the test equipment as a result of the large tone, effectively extending its capabilities for harmonic distortion measurement. There is obviously more than one way of doing it, and in this post I will only describe one way which was a good match for my needs.
I wanted to create a small box that would implement this function for my needs to allow me to extend further the THD measurement setup I have. In its simplest form, using the EMU 0404USB I’m able to measure THD of ~0.001% at 1KHz. By using an external low distortion 1KHz oscillator I was able to extend this down to ~0.0004%. However, I was looking for a way to get down to 0.0001% to allow measurement of high quality DAC’s. Since I know the external oscillator I use has sufficiently low distortion to support these figures, I needed a way to reduce the distortion caused by the input stage and ADC of the EMU. I have considered trying to hack the EMU and improve its input stage, but I expect the ADC will limit me before I can reach the target performance. Therefore I went with the option of removing the fundamental frequency from the signal before feeding it into the EMU, to reduce the distortion it generates.
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