Talk:SINAD

Sensitivity - which is better?
Could someone please clarify which values are more sensitive? Is a receiver rated at .22μV @ 12 dB more or less sensitive than a receiver rated at .35μV @ 12 dB? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.146.166.85 (talk) 15:20, 29 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Both receivers have the same SINAD, so this is purely a question of sensitivity. The receiver rated at 0.22uV is more sensitive, as it can produce the same signal clarity from a smaller detected voltage. GyroMagician (talk) 07:19, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

(A hidden Q&A follows this entry which is visible only if you edit this talk page.) Altaphon (talk) 21:03, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

This article's recent rename
I disagree with the movement/renaming of this page from "SINAD" to "Signal, Noise, and Distortion". There was no consensus for the move. The intro to WP:NAME states that the article should be recognizable, easy to find, precise, concise, and consistent. WP:ABBR states that it "Acronyms should be used in page naming if the subject is almost exclusively known only by its acronym and is widely known and used in that form (e.g., NASA and radar). " Which is certainly the case here. Any objections to moving it back? (I ask here, because I don't want to start a move-war)  Me Three  ( talk to me )  14:59, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
 * No intention of starting an edit war here either ;-) Sorry, I guess I should have asked first. As you've probably seen I moved several pages (Signal-to-quantization-noise ratio, Signal-to-noise_plus_interference) to try to make the naming a bit more consistent. In those cases I think it is clearly better to use the full name (as for SNR), but maybe SINAD is a special case? I have a slight preference for the full name + redirect, but not a strong one - I'm happy to go with the consensus. GyroMagician (talk) 16:54, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I remember the first time I came to this page, and I typed "SINAD" (if that failed, I'd have probably typed "Signal to Noise and Distortion", as I always thought the "to" should be in there). I believe the vast majority of users looking for the article would do the same. Since we have the luxury of redirect, it's not a huge issue, but my preference is to keep it as SINAD (and to redirect from the "Signal, noise and distortion" and "Signal to noise and distortion" (Also, the fact that it's pronounceable makes it a bit more used in common speech than the other examples.)  I hadn't notice the others (they're not on my watch-list).  And, by the way, my use of bolding above was to emulate the WP:NAME page -- I don't want to come across as yelling!  Me Three  ( talk to me )  18:29, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi Me Three, don't worry, I didn't feel shouted at ;-) I quite like that redirects can be used to expand acronyms. However, I'm coming round to your argument. Should the pages be called "signal-to-noise plus distortion", "signal to noise and distortion", "signal, noise and distortion", etc??? It seems pretty much impossible to get it right, while SINAD is pretty universal. Also, SINAD is subtly different to SNR. Signal-to-noise is usually defined as S/N, whereas SINAD=(S+N+D)/(N+D), so I don't think it should be called signal-to-noise+distortion. Oh, I've opened a can of worms! GyroMagician (talk) 17:04, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, if it were Signal-to-Noise-PLUS-Distortion, it would be SINPD -- which at first glance appears to be a religious-centric Police Department that targets Sinners (hey, the worm can is already open!). But you're right: for Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR or -- following the similar term C/I -- S/N), there really isn't a preferred, accepted term -- none that I know of anyway.  For SINAD, the generally accepted term is the acronym.  Me Three  ( talk to me )  17:38, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
 * There seem to be a whole mixture out there. National Instruments prefer Signal, Noise and Distortion, while Maxim prefer Signal-to-noise and distortion ratio. If we revert the name change, at least we avoid trying to define the acronym! I'll revert the name and see if we can close the sinners worm-can. GyroMagician (talk) 19:25, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Returned to the old page name. Thanks for making this a helpful discussion, rather than an argument :-) I promise to ask before moving next time! GyroMagician (talk) 10:28, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
 * No problem.... always glad to have a civil discussion here! Thanks for moving back (I still haven't mastered the skill of renaming articles myself, yet.) The metaphorical worm-can is now closed!  Me Three  ( talk to me )  16:21, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

What does it stand for?
I agree with closing the worm-can above, but we do need to correct the definition of the acronym. I will look for historical backup but from the early 1970s when it was promoted as a more intelligent way to measure radio sensitivity, I have always heard it defined as Signal In Noise And Distortion and I may have some source documents from GE that state this. Altaphon (talk) 21:03, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Need for 2 definitions?
I don't see any difference between the two "possible definitions". Basically you first measure your original signal level, and then re-measure the same signal after filtering out the useful signal (which is usually a sine wave). SINAD is the ratio between the two, that's it. I am writing a paper on a subject that makes great use of it : the only source of "official" information on SINAD I found is in standard IEC 60315, which is the reference international standard for testing radio receivers. SINAD is briefly explained in part 4, paragraph 2.2.2.2 (I only have the French edition with me, but it basically translates as I wrote it above). The main difference between SINAD results from different test setups will be from weighing networks and detectors (it can make a huge difference, which is why a SINAD value not stating them is worthless). If no one disagrees with me, I think I might change things.--Corentinoger (talk) 16:56, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Definition of the SINAD
Shouldn't the SINAD be defined as


 * $$SINAD = \frac{S}{ND} = \frac{P_\mathrm{Signal} }{P_\mathrm{Rauschen} + P_\mathrm{Verzerrungen}}$$

instead of


 * $$SINAD = \frac{SND}{ND} = \frac{P_\mathrm{Signal} + P_\mathrm{Rauschen} + P_\mathrm{Verzerrungen}}{P_\mathrm{Rauschen} + P_\mathrm{Verzerrungen}}$$

Makes more sense — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.27.136.4 (talk) 13:35, 11 December 2012 (UTC)


 * It might appear to make more sense, but how do you propose to measure signal in the absence of noise and distortion? This is a practical measure - it is usually easy to exclude the signal, but hard to cut out the noise. In many cases SNR uses a similar definition in practice (S+N/N), which is close to S/N if you can assume the S is considerably larger than the N. GyroMagician (talk) 20:12, 11 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I very much agree. The first option makes more sense and if you check on the IEEE Standard 1658-2011 on Terminology and Test methods of DAC devices, you'd find that it says:
 * 3.1.82 signal-to-noise and distortion ratio (SINAD): For a pure sine-wave input of specified amplitude and frequency, the ratio of the root-mean-square (rms) amplitude of the digital-to-analog converter (DAC) filtered reconstructed output sine wave to the rms amplitude of the output noise and distortion.
 * Of course this is on how to measure the SINAD of a DAC, so one can choose to upload sine waves. This allows to fairly easily estimate the signal power and separate it from any noise and distortion. So I agree that one can also use the second definition as an approximation when the signal power is large compared to the noise and distortion, but one should keep in mind it's not the exact value. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.174.67.20 (talk) 15:42, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

As an electrical engineer i never saw the second definition, the first one makes more sense. see IEEE Standard 1658-2011 it has no practical reasons why i should use the second term as a definition, you have to use fft. for a defintion of sinad use google paper of analog devices or ti — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.96.88.68 (talk) 10:49, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Measurement method
The article states: "With no signal present on the input, the noise and distortion of the receiver are measured at a convenient level."

This is complete nonsense. How can you measure the distortion of a signal when no signal is present? 82.69.72.163 (talk) 11:56, 7 March 2023 (UTC)