DSP Dilemma

Q. I am a musician and use a digital signal processor to get guitar effects from my home theater receiver. I know that some digital devices can disrupt the reception of nearby FM tuners, so if I listen to FM using one of the receiver's DSP modes, can the digital effects circuits degrade the radio reception?
Jon Foreman
Kincheloe, MI

A. Ian G. Masters says: Theoretically they can, but I think it's highly unlikely that they would. Digital audio signals — whether generated by a CD player or the DSP circuits in your receiver — do operate in the radio-frequency range and can sometimes cause the sort of interference you're referring to; it much depends on the equipment creating the signal and the sensitivity of a given FM tuner to it. In the case of internal DSPs, however, I doubt that a receiver manufacturer would design a piece of equipment whose RF components weren't properly shielded or that didn't otherwise avoid this kind of interference. But it's not impossible, so the best way to find out if your equipment is doing it is to listen to an FM signal with the DSP in the circuit, and see what happens.

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