Talk:Octave (electronics)

factor of 10^0.3 in frequency = oct?

This edit comment (sometimes a factor of 2; sometime a factor of 10^0.3 is used instead) is a surprise to me. That the octave should be approximated as 0.3 decades is no surprise (it is 0.3010... dec), but it would make no sense to regard 0.3 dec as anything but an approximation to the factor of 2 of an octave (10^0.3 = 1.995...). We refer to a first-order filter as having a roll-off of 6 dB/oct, but this is merely a convenient approximation to exactly 6.020... dB/oct = 20 dB/dec. —Quondum 17:30, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

The following two standards both use the symbol G to represent the frequency ratio corresponding to one octave:

• IEC 61260-1:2014 uses G = 10^0.3;
• ANSI S1.11-2016 permits G = 2 (base 2 system) and G = 10^0.3 (base 10 system);

I know it's bizarre and I'm not defending it. Just repeating what the standards say. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 18:02, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm totally gobsmacked. This kind of ambiguity is precisely what "standards" are (I thought) supposed to avoid. But I suppose a "standard" is inherently just a camel by another name... —Quondum 18:31, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

See also One-third octave. Perhaps the two articles should be merged? And where would that leave Decade? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 18:46, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

That article seems to suggest that the standards refer to "octave (base 10)" and "octave (base 2)" to disambiguate. As a first approximation, I would suggest three articles: Decade (log scale), Octave (base 2) (renamed from Octave (electronics)), and Octave (base 10) (a new article). The latter (and only it) would include details about the "decimal octave". But I'm still not thinking straight: my perception of the entire electronics engineering profession has just suffered a nasty body-blow (and yes, I count myself in their number). —Quondum 19:25, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

It's completely bonkers, although no more so than referring to 1024 bytes as a kilobyte. Following that example would suggest a total of 4 articles:

• One article entitled Decade (log scale) explaining the base 10 concept (unambiguous);
• One article entitled Octave explaining the base 2 concept, and describing both base 2 and base 10 interpretations;
• One article entitled One-third octave explaining its base 2 and base 10 meanings;
• One article entitled One-tenth decade (or Decidecade) explaining the base 10 meaning of "one-third octave" (unambiguous).

Would that be OTT? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 19:50, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

This would not be my reading of WP:NAD. That is, I consider octave (base 2) and octave (base 10) to be the same name with distinct meanings, albeit related historically. Especially considering their closeness and confusability, stressing the distinction by separation and linking to each other via their See also sections or discussion content would create least confusion. One-tenth decade (and its synonyms, decidecade and one-third octave (base 10)) to me belongs in an article listing all the notable integer multiples and submultiples of a decade: Milligram is a redirect to Kilogram, not its own article, and this is similar. Octave (base 10) could be merged into Decade (log scale) as one of its notable rational multiples, rather than being an article in its own right.

Having said this, I suspect I'm going to remain internally conflicted about this and that I am accordingly not likely to be an active contributor. At best, therefore, my opinion on this should be given little weight, as with an uninvolved (and over-opinionated) bystander. —Quondum 20:17, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Lol. I suggest we await opinions and suggestions of others before taking action. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 20:26, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

I think the only thing that critically needs to happen here is to add information about the base 10 version of the octave to this article. One-third octave already has information about base 10 and base 2. ~Kvng (talk) 13:30, 26 July 2018 (UTC)