Perception of longitudinal components in piano string vibrations

This paper investigates the audibility of longitudinal components in piano string vibrations with listening tests. The recorded fortissimo sounds of two grand and one upright pianos have been resynthesized with and without longitudinal components and used in ABX type listening tests. Results suggest that the longitudinal components are audible up to note C-5. However, a second test seeking the importance of the difference shows that the effect of longitudinal components for the range A(3)-C-5 is subtle. This means that modeling the phenomenon up to around note A(3) only is acceptable for sound synthesis applications. (C) 2010 Acoustical Society of America