If you take a sinusoids, invert it, slightly offset it, and combine them. You get a smaller signal always, unless you’re delay is larger then 90°.
I would recommend playing with some audio signals in an online simulator and see what you get, you realise that your 2D intuition does not apply well to analogue 1D signals. The strict digital nature of image processing done on a computer creates the possibility of results not easily possible when working on analogue signal. After all you can one pixel on a screen at max brightness, and it’s neighbour completely of, but it’s impossible to recreate a similar hard edge with an audio signal because it would require the speaker to be capable of infinite speed and acceleration.
