Correlated sound sources combine by direct pressure addition
Evidence
Sound levels add together differently depending on whether they are correlated or uncorrelated. When the sources are correlated, the pressure waves from the correlated sources simply add, as shown in Equation 1.26. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 227
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- DEFINE: Introduces the correlated/uncorrelated distinction that governs how sound levels sum.
Related
- Adding sound levels differs depending on whether sources are correlated or not. (similarity 0.91)
- Correlated sound sources add pressures while uncorrelated ones add energy (similarity 0.89)
- Correlated sound sources sum to between zero and twice their individual amplitudes (similarity 0.87)
- Uncorrelated sound waves sum by power, not by amplitude. (similarity 0.87)
- Adding uncorrelated sound sources raises level as the square root of their number (similarity 0.86)
- Uncorrelated source addition ignores phase and depends only on signal power. (similarity 0.85)
- Two equal uncorrelated sound sources add only 3 decibels. (similarity 0.85)
- Uncorrelated source totals ignore the relative phases of signals. (similarity 0.85)
- Correlated source summation swings from zero to twice amplitude by frequency (similarity 0.84)
- Sound power and intensity levels are unaffected by source correlation, unlike pressure level (similarity 0.83)
- Correlated sound sources create spatial interference patterns that uncorrelated sources do not. (similarity 0.82)
- Coherent sounds interfere by amplitude while incoherent sounds sum by power. (similarity 0.82)
- Mutual resonance between sources boosts combined power beyond their sum (similarity 0.81)
- Interfering sound waves pass through each other because their energy flow is preserved (similarity 0.80)
- Decibels cannot be summed directly because they are logarithmic power ratios (similarity 0.80)