Spectral analysis: On the usefulness of linear tapering for leakage suppression

The problem of linear versus quadratic modification in power spectral analysis is discussed. It is shown that linear tapering is of great benefit in the investigation of spectra with a large dynamic range. In particular we demonstrate that a linear taper is required to prevent an undesirable leakage effect in the estimate's random error. Examples are given of a spectral analysis with and without a linear modification, applied to identical signal records.