Difference_tone Difference_tone

Difference tone - Definition

Related Words: Aberration, Abnormality, Accommodation, Account, Adaptation, Aggregate, Alienation, Alteration, Annulet, Anomaly, Apostasy, Argent, Argument

Difference tone is a bio-acoustic phenomenon. When two tones are played simultaneously, a hearer can in addition perceive the tone whose frequency is a sum or difference of the two frequencies.

The discovery of the phenomenon is credited to the violinist Giuseppe Tartini.

It is the consequence of non-linear distortion of the response of the human ear. It appears that mainly the inner ear non-linearity produces this distortion, while the middle ear response is quite linear at normal sound levels.

If two pure tones of frequencies f1 and f2 are present in a sound, the ear non-linearity would produce intermodulation tones of frequencies equal to the sums and differences of whole multiples of the two frequencies. In particular, a difference tone of 2f1f2 is quite pronounced for certain choices of frequencies.

External links

  • Hearing Sounds (http://www.isvr.soton.ac.uk/SPCG/Tutorial/Tutorial/Tutorial_files/Web-hearing-difference.htm)

Example Usage of Difference

lionheart727: @MsOrientalMs so how would you describe the Difference?
tHeMAgNOLiAk: U CAN make a Difference ~STOP wearing leather/fur, spay/neuter your pets, STOP eating fastfood/meat, dont support animal testing. #wakeup
15keystosuccess: When you see the weather report and it says "partly cloudy" and then the next day it says "partly sunny"; what’s the Difference?
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