Self-noise (noise floor)
Definition
The electrical noise inherent in a microphone circuit and capsule, measured in dB(A) equivalent input noise. Different microphone types have characteristic noise floors: MEMS microphones used in smartphones typically exhibit 58 to 65 dB(A) EIN; high-quality condenser microphones achieve below 20 dB(A).
Related terms
- Double compression
- The condition in which a video has been encoded at least twice through a lossy codec. The term is also used loosely...
- MEMS microphone
- A Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems microphone: the capsule type used in virtually all modern smartphones and tablets. MEMS microphones have a characteristically flat midrange...
- Psychoacoustic masking model
- The perceptual model used by lossy codecs such as MP3 and AAC to decide which frequency components can be discarded or coarsely...
- Quantisation noise
- The distortion introduced when a continuous audio signal is rounded to discrete digital values. Lossy codecs concentrate quantisation noise at predictable frequency...
- Spectral fingerprint
- The characteristic frequency response profile of a recording device, including roll-off curves, resonance peaks, and self-noise level. Comparing a recording's spectral fingerprint...
Explained in
- Microphone and Codec Identification in Audio ForensicsThe electrical noise inherent in a microphone circuit and capsule, measured in dB(A) equivalent input noise. Different microphone types have characteristic noi...