Whats Audio Master Quality
Yamaha developed Audio Master Quality Recording to compensate for higher “jitter” in recorded CDs. This is not the kind of jitter addressed by “jitter correction” in CD rippers (2-15). This is the “jitter” that people selling fancy stereo equipment talk about. Jitter is time-base error. It’s not a corruption of the digital ‘1’s and ‘0’s, it’s a distortion of the timing in which the ‘1’s and ‘0’s arrive at their destination. This doesn’t affect extraction of audio, so you don’t need to worry about this kind of jitter when reading a CD or ripping to MP3. You do need to worry about it when listening to a CD. The digital signal is read from a CD via an analog process: bouncing a laser off of “pits” and “lands” on a CD. Various factors can prevent the signals from arriving at the right place at exactly the right time. High-end CD players can correct these anomalies, but many don’t. AMQ extends the length of the pits and lands on the CD in an attempt to produce a more stable signal.
