I figured out how to do what I described in my question and thought I should post it for the benefit of others. The code is below. I call playByteArray and pass it a byte array containing pcm wav data.
window.onload = init;
var context; // Audio context
var buf; // Audio buffer
function init() {
if (!window.AudioContext) {
if (!window.webkitAudioContext) {
alert("Your browser does not support any AudioContext and cannot play back this audio.");
return;
}
window.AudioContext = window.webkitAudioContext;
}
context = new AudioContext();
}
function playByteArray(byteArray) {
var arrayBuffer = new ArrayBuffer(byteArray.length);
var bufferView = new Uint8Array(arrayBuffer);
for (i = 0; i < byteArray.length; i++) {
bufferView[i] = byteArray[i];
}
context.decodeAudioData(arrayBuffer, function(buffer) {
buf = buffer;
play();
});
}
// Play the loaded file
function play() {
// Create a source node from the buffer
var source = context.createBufferSource();
source.buffer = buf;
// Connect to the final output node (the speakers)
source.connect(context.destination);
// Play immediately
source.start(0);
}