A digital computer was used to synthesize a scale of tones with fundamentals 18 oct apart; each tone had nonharmonic partials separated by 18 oct or multiples thereof. When sounded together, two tones separated by an even number of 18-oct intervals were more consonant than two tones separated by an odd number of 18-oct intervals. The scale synthesized is one example of many possible unconventional scales that can exhibit consonance and dissonance.
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John R. Pierce (1966) studied this question.