When you talk like gay wood sprites expect to have a few patronizing comments . <| sep |> So good , it deserved a double post . <| sep |> Each ear only has one transducer so it doesn ' t matter how many waveforms or transducers you are using , each ear will still only make one picture of the sound . Basically , a point on a waveform cannot be in compression and rarefaction at the same time . If two waveforms are in opposition to eachother reverse phase you hear nothing . When the oposite happens and several independent sounds are played at once , you can get additive synthesis resulting in a complicated waveform . Transducers like your ear only know if the air next to it is in compression or rarefaction . Playing multiple sounds from one speaker is as easy as averaging the waves together . Your brain is pretty good at recognizing individual components of the sound , but it is still only working with one waveform per ear . Edit as it has been pointed out , our ears are more complicated than simply a pair of transducers . It seems like the details don ' t change the answer to OP ' s question , though , so I ' ll leave the overgeneralization as is .