Distortion sounds like a fuzzy, crunchy, growling, or gritty alteration of the original sound, caused by clipping the sound wave's peaks, making it sound thicker, harsher, or even harsh and unpleasant, depending on the type, from subtle saturation (warmer, fuller) to extreme fuzz (gritty, buzzy) or digital aliasing (digital artifacts). It can manifest as crackles, clicks, or a "clipped" quality, adding harmonics that make the sound more aggressive or muddy.
Hearing that crackle, fuzz, or clipped sound is a dead giveaway: your audio is distorted. It's what happens when a signal gets pushed past what your system can handle, which literally alters the original sound wave. Think of it like an overexposed photo.
Distortion refers to the altering or deformation of an audio signal's original waveform. Technically, any kind of audio processing (EQ, compression, time-based effects, etc.)
You might hear the following:
Buzzing or static sounds. Internal hissing or screeching sounds in your ears. Sounds like ocean waves, chirping crickets, or whooshing wind.
Distortion and overdrive are forms of audio signal processing used to alter the sound of amplified electric musical instruments, usually by increasing their gain, producing a "fuzzy", "growling", or "gritty" tone.
Symptoms can last minutes, hours or days after noise exposure ends. Your hearing may return to normal, but you still have damage. Your hearing may eventually come back, but continued exposure to loud noises can further damage your hearing and make hearing loss permanent.
When positions on the graticule are transformed to positions on a projected grid, four types of distortion can occur: distortion of sizes, angles, distances, and directions. Map projections that avoid one or more of these types of distortion are said to preserve certain properties of the globe.
Have you ever noticed how straight lines sometimes appear curved near the edges of a wide-angle photo? That's lens distortion at work! Distortion is a type of aberration that mainly affects the appearance of the light in the image formed.
Emotional reasoning
It is often described as “I feel it; therefore, it must be true.” This is a common distortion because emotions are powerful, but they are not necessarily the truth (Hofmann et al., 2013). For example, “I feel lucky tonight. I'll bet my paycheck on that horse race.”
Various types of distortion exist, including harmonic distortion, intermodulation distortion, and frequency distortion. Harmonic distortion occurs when additional harmonics are introduced to the original signal, often due to non-linear effects in audio equipment.
Distortion in a signal is the alteration or change of the shape or some other characteristic of the waveform. In contrast, noise is an external random signal added to the original signal. It's harder to remove the effects of noise than to remove the effects of distortion.
For instance, around 1951, the guitarist on a really cool track called “Rocket 88” supposedly took a pin of some sort, and jammed little holes all in the speaker, and that was what he said made the distortion sound on that track.
Thermal issues, such as overheating components like the voice coil and cone, can alter material properties, causing distortion. Mechanical design flaws, such as poorly engineered cones or suspensions, may lead to unintended vibrations that impact sound clarity.
Just 1% distortion of a complex signal creates a broadband noise floor at a level of -40dB. Practical tests have proven that we can hear a 1Khz sine wave tone with 0dB level with white noise at levels of -70 to -80dB.
Examples of cognitive distortions
All-or-nothing thinking: Assuming one failure or mistake is the end of things. “I didn't go to the gym yesterday. I may as well cancel my membership because I clearly can't be counted on to use it.” Catastrophizing: You assume the worst-case scenario will happen, even if it's unlikely.
The list of artists who notably distorted the figure is too long to be complete. It is worth mentioning a few, Goya, Velàsquez, Breugel, Francis Bacon, Alice Neal, Oscar Kokoshka, Matisse, Chagall, Roualt, Rodin.
Distortion created by the vocal folds is called creaking in cvt, also known as (pitched or atonal) fry screaming which happens when there's an energy mismatch, for example you sing in a chesty mix and reduce your energy to the point where you won't have enough energy to sustain a chesty mix but still slightly too much ...
The following fabrication techniques are used to control distortion:
It has been theorized that distortion may increase the perception of loudness of the signal through the creation of additional harmonic energy and, through these additional harmonics, may provide additional identification cues for speech understanding for some listeners with hearing losses.
Muffled hearing doesn't mean you've entirely lost your hearing. Rather, it involves a noticeable drop in clarity or sharpness. Sounds may seem far away or indistinct, and conversations might be harder to follow. You may also feel fullness in the ear, along with symptoms like tinnitus, dizziness or general discomfort.