Quote:
@post 2743
Sine waves are not some abstract signal created in a lab. They’re the primary building block of all sounds we hear. Analogies would be a single color of light or a pure chemical element from the periodic table. All the colors we perceive are combinations of individual wavelengths of light. And everything we experience in the physical world is made up of elements from the periodic table. And, in much the same way, music is just a collection of sine waves. A perfect sine wave is a single pure tone and has no distortion of its own. It's the most pure component of sound.
Quoted from Voldemort.
I understand the importance of sine waves in math and physics. The solution to "d^2 x / dt^2 = -x" illustrates how fundamentally important they are.
But actually, that description you posted is an excellent example of why sinewaves are the
worst to test a headphone with. Anything can produce a sinewave, since it's literally the simplest thing to reproduce. When all other frequencies are eliminated, suddenly you have a lot less to worry about in terms of sound reproduction.
Let me put it this way. Take any headphone and so a simple frequency sweep, 20 hz - 20 khz using pure sinewaves. I guarantee you, other than detecting maybe some sound signature features, you would have no clue whatsoever the difference between a mediocre headphone and a great one, listening to a simple frequency sweep alone.
In other words, "d^2 x / dt^2" is not a simple linear function in real life, and this is directly due to the design of the driver as well as the acoustic housing.