Hi,
I always blamed the sound card and/or headphones, as I have only done this test on a laptop with a shitty integrated soundcard (and I usually don't work with synthesis, nor with such refined processing to require to care too much about subtleties)... but now I doubt.
The attached patch is simply an osc *~ed by a number and connected to the dac i.e.:
[osc~ 500]
|
[*~ 0.05]
|
[dac~]
with a slider ranging from 0 to 0.1 connected to the right inlet of the *~.
Now, to my ear the sinusoid sounds ridiculously distorted, with really very very audible harmonics. Especially if I lower the amplitude to a value below 0.03, which is still enough "loud" to be heared clearly. As I move the slider up and down I can distinctly hear how the harmonic spectrum changes (apart from the obvious clicks in the moment you move the slider).
As I mentioned, I always thought it was the hardware, since I can't believe such an enormous distortion is the normal expected one due to 32 bit float precision...
Or is this the result of the issues that have been mentioned in this thread (table size, linear interpolation)???