@maynovent - I've wondered this same thing about speakers. How does a single driver replicate sounds of different freq. at the same time without stepping on itself and smearing one or the other?
Question about how analog audio recording works
Hello!
My wife and I are high and having a discussion about how sound is recorded on records. I have an, I think, more than average understand of how sound and recording/playback works so I was trying to explain how grooves on the record represent sound waves.
What we don't understand is how polyphony is physically represented. So I can see how a single sine can easily be represented on a record. But when you're talking several sounds at once, some on the same pitch some now, dozens of timbres happening all at once, how do we differentiate those sounds on a physical medium like vinyl, or how do we represent it digitally? Is it literally nothing more than 1s and 0s? That'd be sick
Anyway, I hope this makes sense. Thanks!
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In air, there's no such thing as polyphony. Air pressure is either rising or lowering. The sound of a violin, or drum, or any complex sounding instrument at any instant in time is creating pressure at a microphone which is either going up or going down or still when silent. That up and down is what a vinyl record tracks, and what a speaker driver represents as it moves towards you or away from you. |
@dweller Full range drivers are not an example. They fall all over themselves all the time due to breakups and something called the Doppler Effect. Finally, 'full range' drivers don't exist. All of them will need a subwoofer and a tweeter (to fix beamy-ness); in essence 'wide range midrange driver' is a far more accurate description.
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- 26 posts total