About This Lesson
Dither is noise. Engineers working on better sound reproduction discovered that by adding in random noise at the volume of one digital bit they can keep the CD recording mechanism from shutting off in the presence of low-level sounds. Though it’s random, the background noise has the effect of highlighting non-random sounds. It’s a surprising finding—we are used to thinking of background noise as a distraction. There are instances, though, where a little randomness actually helps our senses focus on what isn’t random.
