Interference becomes negligible when the interfering wave drops below an eighth of the other
Evidence
If the two waves are not of equal amplitude then the interference effect is reduced, also as shown in Figure 1.27. In fact once the interfering wave is less than one eighth of the other wave then the peak variation in sound pressure level is less than 1 dB. — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 360
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- XREF: A practical, actionable threshold relevant to live-sound engineering and recording; useful when applying psychoacoustic knowledge to real setups.
Related
- Weak interfering waves under one eighth intensity produce negligible comb filtering (similarity 0.90)
- Unequal wave amplitudes quickly reduce interference effects below 1 dB peak variation (similarity 0.90)
- Two equal interferers plus an 8-dB-lower target yields a global SNR near -11 dB. (similarity 0.80)
- Equal-amplitude sounds in phase double in amplitude while out of phase they cancel (similarity 0.79)
- Acoustical interference is non-minimum-phase but less audible than resonances. (similarity 0.79)
- Simple integer frequency ratios minimize partial interference and thus dissonance (similarity 0.78)