Note the big spike in the middle, flanked by multiple smaller spikes on each side of the big one? The big one is the impulse and the smaller versions of it are the ringing that it produced. Just to be clear, the big one is all we want to see - and all the little ones are added and inaccurate distortions.
This particular impulse shows ringing before and after the impulse - a strange feat indeed - and this is typical of many digital circuits called "pre-ringing". Pre-ringing pretty much never happens in analog circuits.
We can also see this ringing when we place another type of impulse through our system called a square wave.
This should just look like a perfectly flat line but instead note the ripples.
What's all this mean? It means that whenever a musical transient is playing through your system you are getting far moreinaccurateinformation than you ever wanted.
These are the areas that we look at very closely when we design a product because too much ringing sounds hard and bright - a characteristic none of us are happy with.
So, the next time someone says their amp or loudspeakers are perfect because "all the measurements show no distortion" you'll know better than to believe them and trust your ears a bit more instead.
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