beat frequency

[chencxm]

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So what is exactly the beat frequency? If there were two sound waves of 330Hz and 333Hz, shall I hear a "beat" of 3Hz? I mean, does this thing exist as a separate sound wave of 3Hz, or is it just the difference of the two waves I can detect? Cause normal human hearing range is 20Hz - 20kHz.

 

[loveoforganic]

The beat has a frequency of 3 Hz. What the beat is is the pulses of constructive interference amongst destructive interference. So you would be able to hear that beat, yes.

 

[Charles_Carmichael]

The beat has a frequency of 3 Hz. What the beat is is the pulses of constructive interference amongst destructive interference. So you would be able to hear that beat, yes.

Yea, you'd hear it get loud and then become very soft until you can't hear it. And the cycle repeats.

 

[sv3]

Yea, you'd hear it get loud and then become very soft until you can't hear it. And the cycle repeats.

I thought you would only hear the one level, not a cycle. Doesn't the interference result in one pitch?

 

[Pulsar]

So what is exactly the beat frequency? If there were two sound waves of 330Hz and 333Hz, shall I hear a "beat" of 3Hz? I mean, does this thing exist as a separate sound wave of 3Hz, or is it just the difference of the two waves I can detect? Cause normal human hearing range is 20Hz - 20kHz.

The first graph at 10Hz. The second graph is 15Hz. The third graph is the sum of the two. You can see that the period of the resulting sum sinusoid is 0.2 seconds, which corresponds to a frequency of 1/0.2 = 5Hz. Which is the difference between 10 and 15.