Electrical specifications
AES/EBU digital audio interfaces

Here we'll be looking at the physical layers of the AES/EBU link, i.e. the electrical characteristics of the transmitter, cable and receiver. So far, we've seen that the various audio interfaces (AES3, SPDIF, IEC 60958, AES42) ultimately use the same logical protocol, with the same blocks, frames and subframes, the same biphase mark modulation and the same C channels (channel status ) in both professional and consumer modes. On the electrical side, however, specifications differ. Three situations arise. The first corresponds to the AES3 standard, in a professional-type link, mainly in a purely audio context. The second is the consumer variant of this standard, corresponding to a SPDIF or IEC 60958-3 link. The third variant is, like the first, intended for professional use, but is of particular interest to TV users, and is based on the AES-3id recommendation. In the following, we will refer...