Perfectly synchronized voices are acoustically indistinguishable from one voice

Evidence

No one mistakes a chorus for a soloist, and vice versa. Nor are 20 violins ever mistaken for a single violin. Yet if all singers are somehow in exact lockstep unison, with no vibrato or frequency drift, the sound some distance away would be indistinguishable from that attainable by a single voice. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 418

Categorization

• CANDY: A friendly cocktail-party fact: perfect unison in a chorus is literally indistinguishable from a solo singer.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 418
• XREF: connects to: Slight mistuning among voices fuses into a single pleasant tone; Periodicity differences segregate concurrent sounds only under idealized quiet conditions — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 5026; Different voice qualities result from distinct vocal fold modes (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Periodicity differences segregate concurrent sounds only under idealized quiet conditions #qualifies (0.75) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 5026
• Different voice qualities result from distinct vocal fold modes #expands (0.72)