The many faces of distortion

[Wavebourn]

Okay, just listened to HF-content...

Here is a simple wave, fs=48khz, left channel is 20khz,right channel is 19khz.

http://www.lf-pro.net/mbittner/TestWave/beep.wav

The pure frequencies are not audible (for me), playing them both
results in a nicely audible 1khz-sinewave... (not subtile)

So much about HF-content not audible ? This seems to negate all
comments like "nobody hears distortions on 20khz signal" ?

If it's true that the ear is very able to "hear" that high frequencies,
keyparameters for amps should be quite different than they used to be ?

Mike

I hear both of them, as well as 1 KHz and noise (hiss)., I am around 50. Hearing 1 KHz through headphones not necessary means intedmodulation in amplifiers. It means our perception is non-linear.
R. Monroe back in 1960'th exploited this fact for brain activity stimulation, he used couple of tones, each reproduced in a different ear, that intermodulating produced infrasound than otherwise can't be heard from that headphones.
Contrary, some high end amplifiers sounding very realistic when measured show high level of intedmodulation distortions. It means, that we hear slight distortions wehh, but only when they differ from our own perception's distortions.
"Natural" distortions when present they are not perceived as distortions, they are perceived as higher loudness.

It is my theory that works perfectly.