Hackaday

Resistors introduce two types of noise into circuits: Johnson noise (thermal, independent of construction) and 1/f excess noise (dependent on material and construction). At low frequencies, 1/f noise dominates and can cause significant errors in noise-sensitive applications. Hans Rosenberg built a test rig to measure 1/f noise across resistor types, demonstrating that thick film resistors produce substantially more noise than other types such as thin film or wirewound. The video also provides rule-of-thumb rankings of resistor types by noise performance, a useful reference for precision analog circuit design.

Quieting Noisy Resistors