Also called a Tartini tone, a combination tone is a usually lower pitch produced inside the inner ear by the presence of two external pitches. The frequency of the most commonly heard combination tone is the difference between the frequencies of the two pitches, f2 - f1, if f2 is the higher frequency. Though much less common the following frequencies may also be heard:
In psychoacoustical literature the pitch of a tone is often indicated by its frequency or, in the case of complex tones, by its fundamental frequency.
This tone has an ambiguous pitch, since two approximations by harmonic series are possible, namely one with a fundamental of 216.6 Hz (the component of 1300 Hz being the sixth harmonic in this case) and one with a fundamental of 185.9 Hz (1300 Hz being the seventh harmonic).
The diagram illustrates that the combinationtones arc stronger for small frequency differences of the primary tones than for large differences; this indicates that the origin of combinationtones is tightly connected with the frequency-analyzing process in the inner ear.
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