Signals & Waveforms#

How signals are described and characterized. Before capturing, processing, or reproducing a signal, having a language for talking about what it is matters — amplitude, frequency, phase, bandwidth, noise floor. These concepts show up everywhere in electronics, but they take on specific practical meaning in audio and signal processing work.

Understanding signals in both the time domain and the frequency domain is essential. Some problems are obvious in one view and invisible in the other. A clean-looking waveform can hide distortion that’s immediately apparent on a spectrum display — and vice versa.

What This Section Covers#

  • Time-Domain Signals — Amplitude, frequency, phase, periodic vs aperiodic signals, common waveforms, and RMS vs peak measurements.
  • Frequency-Domain View — Spectra, bandwidth definitions, and why frequency-domain thinking matters for circuit design.
  • Noise & Signal Quality — SNR, dynamic range, noise sources, and how bandwidth affects noise measurements.
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