Envelope Detector - Drawbacks

Drawbacks

The envelope detector has several drawbacks:

• The input to the detector must be band-pass filtered around the desired signal, or else the detector will simultaneously demodulate several signals. The filtering can be done with a tunable filter or, more practically, a superheterodyne receiver
• It is more susceptible to noise than a product detector
• If the signal is overmodulated, distortion will occur

Most of these drawbacks are relatively minor and are usually acceptable tradeoffs for the simplicity and low cost of using an envelope detector.