{"id":31406,"date":"2025-04-28T14:56:53","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T21:56:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/?p=31406"},"modified":"2025-04-28T14:57:33","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T21:57:33","slug":"from-the-forum-does-the-analog-discovery-3-software-measure-audio-thd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/from-the-forum-does-the-analog-discovery-3-software-measure-audio-thd\/","title":{"rendered":"Measuring Audio THD with Analog Discovery 3 and Waveforms: From the Forum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">A recent question asked on the Digilent Forum was about how to measure the Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) in audio signals with the Analog Discovery 3. Let&#8217;s clarify the options.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span data-contrast=\"auto\">The Question:<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/forum.digilent.com\/topic\/31034-misure-thd-with-analog-discovery-3\/\"><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Does the Analog Discovery 3 software measure THD, or is additional programming, using something like Python or LabVIEW, required?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<h4><span data-contrast=\"auto\">The Answer:<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> A Simple Scope Can Go A Long Way.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Network Analyzer: Built for analyzing the frequency response of circuit networks, the Network Analyzer instrument in the free WaveForms software can plot THD while it performs sweeps. In the Network Analyzer\u2019s Magnitude settings box, go into the &#8220;Spectrum&#8221; dropdown and make sure that spectrum analysis is <\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">enabled <\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">and that the \u201cTHD\u201d box is checked.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Scope FFT: If you need to use your own input signal, the Network Analyzer might not be an option. Fear not, the Scope instrument has options for frequency analysis too. While the Scope&#8217;s FFT window doesn&#8217;t directly measure THD, manual calculations are possible (see this video: <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/s_cVP5gu4SY?si=LBbLmICCq4V56yU7\">Measuring Total Harmonic Distortion THD using an FFT on an oscilloscope<\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0View <\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Forum Thread: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/forum.digilent.com\/topic\/31034-misure-thd-with-analog-discovery-3\/\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">https:\/\/forum.digilent.com\/topic\/31034-misure-thd-with-analog-discovery-3\/<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Learn more about Waveforms <a href=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/reference\/software\/waveforms\/waveforms-3\/start?srsltid=AfmBOoqglQDqq8MeMFVeEJN9yMKv_E44JYBqdEXx9NqEC0XLeU_2rJpN\">here.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<div class='watch-action'><div class='watch-position align-left'><div class='action-like'><a class='lbg-style6 like-31406 jlk' data-task='like' data-post_id='31406' data-nonce='ee750c7abc' rel='nofollow'><img src='https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wti-like-post-pro\/images\/pixel.gif' title='Like' \/><span class='lc-31406 lc'>0<\/span><\/a><\/div><div class='action-unlike'><a class='unlbg-style6 unlike-31406 jlk' data-task='unlike' data-post_id='31406' data-nonce='ee750c7abc' rel='nofollow'><img src='https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wti-like-post-pro\/images\/pixel.gif' title='Unlike' \/><span class='unlc-31406 unlc'>0<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div> <div class='status-31406 status align-left'>Be the 1st to vote.<\/div><\/div><div class='wti-clear'><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent question asked on the Digilent Forum was about how to measure the Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) in audio signals with the Analog Discovery 3. Let&#8217;s clarify the options.\u00a0 &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":31408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1323,20],"tags":[4432,4433,4977,5095,4512,5139,5140,5138,5137],"ppma_author":[4458],"class_list":["post-31406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digilent-forums","category-products","tag-ad3","tag-analog-discovery-3","tag-fft","tag-from-the-forum","tag-scope","tag-thd","tag-total-harmonic-distortion","tag-user-forum","tag-user-question"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/2025-Apr-Newsletter-FromTheForums-735x400-1.png","authors":[{"term_id":4458,"user_id":64,"is_guest":0,"slug":"kdokes","display_name":"Kyli Dokes","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fc7baf2430001248188e564ea9d7d1ae?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Dokes","last_name_2":"","first_name":"Kyli","first_name_2":"","job_title":"","description":""}],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31406"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31410,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31406\/revisions\/31410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31406"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=31406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}