Reply to "Comment on 'Enhancement of the transient-evoked otoacoustic emission produced by the addition of a pure tone in the guinea pig'" [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 105, 919-921 (1999)]

In a recent paper Withnell and Yates [J. Acoust, Sec. Am. 104, 344-399 (199 8)] suggested that the TEOAE might be comprised of significant quantities o f intermodulation distortion energy, based on a series of suppression exper iments involving the measurement of the TEOAE with the addition of a pure t one. Ren and Nuttall [J. Acoust. Sec. Am. 105, 919-921 (1999)] have suggest ed an alternative explanation for our experiments, wherein a pure tone prod uces a local impedance change in the nonlinear mechanical properties of the basilar membrane: emission energy at frequencies below the frequency of th e pure tone is suggested to arise from reflections at this impedance discon tinuity. In this Letter. a response to their hypothesis is given, arguing t hat it is not consistent with experimental findings, and that, in fact, the TEOAE is comprised predominantly of intermodulation distortion energy [Yat es and Withnell, Assoc. Res. Otolaryngol. Abstr. 21, 5 ( 1998)]. (C) 1999 A coustical Society of America. [S0001-4966(99)04102-8].