Theory of Audio Information

ISSN： 1610-1928

Source： Acta Acustica united with Acustica, Vol.22, Iss.6, 1969-01, pp. : 336-344

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Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of frequency resolution and time resolution of audio signals. It shows that those two domains are related one to another through the action of the Discretizer which is the masking effect of the ear. This leads to a generalized concept of the masking effect in the frequency and time domains, as well as to the concept of “Elementary Messages of Discrete Frequency” (EMDIF) which are the inverse FOURIER transforms of the masking curves. The discretizing action of the masking effect allows to obtain a much higher information rate of spectrally encoded messages, than with conventional “short time spectrum analyzers” equipped with passive filters.This approach suggests also a new method of measurements of masking effect, which is free of disturbing “beats” and allows to measure not only the modulus of the masking curves but also their phase characteristics. This last magnitude is a very important one, for it determines the action of the masking effect in the time domain.