Critical to his noise definition was that this includes both harmonic distortion and intermodulation distortion. The reason is simple. As the audio signal becomes more complex, harmonic distortion and intermodulation distortion are summed together and also become more complex. The noise floor now assumes the behaviour of random noise.

We began to investigate the dynamic ranges of other products and found that typically a claimed dynamic range of 40dB would collapse to around 26 - 30dB under normal live sound operation and even less when the amplifier enters clipping.

This brought the question “Is that noise floor audible?” The answer is a simple yes. If you are playing music at 120dB and the noise floor is at 80dB, it is audible. Push the system to 130dB, see the noise floor rise to 100 - 110dB and it is really audible.

Even more so under clipping, the loss of information and the harmonic / intermodulation distortion created in the high frequency masks the mid frequencies resulting in audible harshness. Clipping is common, as an example the dynamic peaks created by an acoustic guitar can easily clip a high power amplifier. The average power required to reproduce the guitar may be only 10 watts, but with 20dB peaks, you will clip a 1 kilowatt amplifier.

Having understood the problem our goal was to develop systems that exhibited up to 20dB more dynamic range than existing products on the market. But how do you begin designing products with increased TDR?

The answer was simple, you focus on everything; transducer design, acoustic design, horns, amplifiers, control electronics and integration schemes. next....