In article , Nick Gorham
wrote:
wrote:
Glenn Richards wrote:

Dave xxxx wrote:

All sound can be treated as though it is composed of sine waves.


All sound can be treated as if its composed of putty, but that still
doesn't mean that it is.

Indeed. Hard to see that such a 'treatment' would make much sense...
Although it may have its uses for Handel's "Water Music". :-)

Dealing with waves only in the frequency domain does mean you have lost
temperal (phase) information.

Not so. :-) You simply define the phase of each frequency component as
well as its amplitude. It then follows from the standard maths methods of
'Orthogonality' that any real signal pattern (i.e. finite amplitude,
duration, and bandwidth) can be fully represented as a series of sinusoidal
components. Indeed, Information Theory relies on this. :-)

There may be some similar maths behind 'putty theory', but if I was taught
about it, it didn't stick... ;-

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html