Demodulation of SSB signals also requires the use of a phase-coherent reference. Figure shows the general configuration to demodulate the SSBsignal.Asmall carrier component, which is transmitted along with the message, is inserted. A balanced modulator is used forfrequency conversion of the bandpass signal to low pass or baseband.

Demodulation of VSB signals generally uses a synchronous detector in the configuration of Figure. In VSB, a carrier component is generally transmitted along with the message sidebands. The existence of the carrier component makes it possible to extract a phase-coherent reference for demodulation in a balanced modulator. In some applications, such as television broadcasting, however, a large carrier component is transmitted along with the message in the VSB signal, and in such a case it is possible to recover the message by passing the received signal through an envelope detector.