Pre-emphasis on audio CD

Some early digital recording & playback equipment, including CD players, used 14
-bit converters, even though they were dealing with 16-bit audio. Some also used
noisy "brick wall" filters to remove frequencies higher than the Nyquist freque
ncy (22050 Hz). The resulting noise introduced by these converters and filters c
ould be made relatively quiet by using pre-emphasis: boosting the signal (especi
ally the higher frequencies) in the recording before it was put onto CD, and emb
edding flags in the disc's subcode to tell a CD player to apply de-emphasis on p
layback. Some CD players even had a de-emphasis button that could be used to man
ually apply de-emphasis, but now it's just a built-in feature of the analog outp
uts of nearly all dedicated audio CD players. By the late 1980s, pre-emphasis st
opped being used because reliable 16-bit DACs with oversampling and other techno
logies minimized the conversion & filtering noise without the need for pre-proce
ssing the recording.
Most major-label CDs with pre-emphasis were manufactured in Japan in the early a
nd mid-1980s. Relatively recent forum posts indicate that pre-emphasis is still
used on newly manufactured CDs by some indie labels, mainly for classical titles
.
A pre-emphasis flag for each track is normally stored in the subcode along with
the audio data. It's also supposed to be stored in the table of contents (TOC),
but many CDs have TOCs that say there's no pre-emphasis when in fact the subcode
says there is. There are also some CDs which people believe were mastered with
pre-emphasis, but which have no pre-emphasis flags set at all.
Helpfile for WaveEmph V1.11 (c) 2004-2008 Th. Ahlersmeyer
De-emphasis a audiofile
WaveEmph allows to analyze and manipulate WAV-files in several steps:
1. Basic WAV-file information:
At first, basic WAV-file information like:
# number of channels
# bit resolution
# sample frequency
# length of WAV-file (in effective mm:ss:hh and total MB)
is given.
2. Statistical evaluation:
For each channel, the maximum and minimum value is given as a percentage of f
ull scale
deflection (FSD) as well as the time, where this value occurs.
Furthermore the average valuen is given in order to detect potential DC conte
nts of the file.
Finally the RMS-value (Root of Mean of Squares) of the signal is calculated.
This is an
energy equivalent value and is an indicator of the average power an amplifier
has to deliver
when playing the WAV-file. It also correlates well with the average loudness
of a file.
Typical RMS-values for "normal" music is 10 to 15%. Music with higher RMS-val
ues is
often "overproduced" (extensive usage of limiters etc.).
3. If the file has a sample rate of 44100 the program calculates the above menti
oned values after application of De-emphasis. Emphasis is a method to reduce the
high frequency background noise by increasing the high frequency level during r
ecording and decreasing the recorded level (and the background noise) during pla

yback. Pre-emphasis was used frequently in the first years of CD recordings and
is a manipulation of the digital data.
4. Finally the program allows to apply a multiplication factor in order to incre
ase or decrease the volume. The maximal allowable multiplication factor without
causing overload will be recommended. If the file has a sample rate of 44100 the
program allows to apply De-emphasis in order to come back to the originally int
ended digital data. This is needed if:
# the Emphasis flag is not read correctly by the CD ripping program
# the Emphasis flag is not set correctly by the CD burning program
# the Emphasis flag is not read correctly by the CD player
# MP3 files are generated
Both modification (multiplication and De-emphasis) can be combined in order to r
educe rounding errors but 2 independant operations.