SIGNAL CONDITIONING CIRCUIT FOR COMPRESSING AUDIO SIGNALS

摘要

A signal conditioning circuit (10) compresses an audio signal by producing a gain signal (Vc) that is a function of the time-averaged audio signal and a compression ratio, and amplifying the audio signal by an exponential function of the gain signal. The conditioning circuit merges the functions of buffering the audio signal and producing a full-wave rectified version of the audio signal into a single buffer circuit (12). An averaging circuit (14) generates a time-averaged signal in response to the full-wave rectified signal. An interface circuit (16) includes downward expansion (60), compression (58) and limiting (59) circuits for scaling the time-averaged signal with a low compression ratio when it is less than a break point, with a selected compression ratio when it is between the break point and a rotation point, and with a high compression ratio when it exceeds the rotation point.