Signaltreue

Signaltreue is the degree to which a signal that has been transmitted, processed, or recorded remains faithful to the original source signal. It is a quality measure used in signal processing, metrology, and communication engineering to describe how accurately information is preserved throughout a signal chain, from sensing and acquisition to transmission and playback.

In practice, signaltreue is assessed with quantitative indicators such as signal-to-noise ratio, total harmonic distortion, root-mean-square error, and perceptual metrics for audio and video. In digital systems, factors like sampling rate, quantization levels, and reconstruction filtering significantly influence signaltreue, since insufficient sampling can cause aliasing and coarse quantization introduces noise. The stability and linearity of the system, as well as timing jitter, also affect fidelity.

Signaltreue is closely tied to the integrity of a measurement chain and to calibration and traceability to standards. Higher signaltreue requires careful design of sensors, analog-to-digital conversion, communication channels, and signal processing algorithms, as well as appropriate filtering and error correction where applicable. In applied contexts, signaltreue matters for audio reproduction, medical imaging, instrumentation and control systems, and data acquisition, where preserving the original signal characteristics is essential for valid interpretation and decision-making.

Terminology varies: in German-language technical literature the term denotes fidelity of the signal and is often translated as signal fidelity or fidelity of a signal in English literature. Related concepts include signal integrity and measurement accuracy.