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Introduction

To the uninitiated, the attraction of audio and video system design is the thrill and excitement of carefully selecting the audio and video components,

To the uninitiated, the attraction of audio and video system design is the thrill and excitement of carefully selecting the audio and video components, determining the correct interconnect of the equipment to provide the system’s functionality, installing this equipment into its new home, and testing and commissioning to bring the equipment online. It is not long, however, before our new audio-video and systems designer is disillusioned by the effects of the real world on his new system. These effects include noise, hum, buzzes, snow on video pictures, shadowing and a variety of other forms of distortion to what was hoped would be a clean signal.

The challenge of designing audio and video systems includes not just that of the actual system design, but all of the other details necessary to keep these systems operating at the performance levels the individual components are capable of. The veteran is all too familiar with the less-than-ideal performance that results when individual pieces of equipment are interconnected into larger systems in real-world conditions.

Organizations such as the Audio Engineering Society (AES) have in recent years devoted entire workshops too solving this problem with the proper use of grounding and shielding. In fact, the magnitude of this problem is illustrated by the simple fact that the editor of this magazine chose to run an entire issue on a solution to this problem. It is hoped that this book-length issue will help you design sound and video systems that are not only safe for the equipment you install, but also for the installers who do the work and, ultimately, for the customers who use that equipment.

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