[Noisebridge-discuss] why a sine wave?

[Gian Pablo Villamil]

Probably due to the lack of harmonics.

It's relatively simple to build a simple oscillator and record its
output with a computer, and then look at it through a spectrum
analyzer.

Then try sticking capacitors on the output side, as a kind of rough
and ready filter, and see what that does the perceived "purity" of the
sound.

I did this a while ago, I documented some (but not all) of the results here:

http://itp.nyu.edu/~gpv206/2007/11/replacing_pots_and_caps_for_be.html

On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 10:59 AM, Michael Shiloh
<michaelshiloh1010 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Why do we perceive a sine audio wave as a "pure" tone? Does it have to
> do with the mechanical vibrations in our ear? Does any non-sine wave
> introduce harmonics, vibrations other than the fundamental, which our
> brain perceives as non-pure?
>
> Regardless of mechanics, what is the perceptive reason a sine wave
> sounds pure?
>
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