This paper produces a good result: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2007/ph210/otey2/. If you game is OK sounding synthetic, I've had good results simulating a string plucked off center, decay each harmonic proportional to the frequency, then adding reverb.
A sound font or VST plug-in with appropriate licenses may be another route, but I can't speak to how difficult that would be to work with. It's on my to-do list.
I wish comparisons like this would include unicode coverage. I have code that uses the symbols, arrows, etc. to avoid needing image assets. Or some non-English text that need accented characters or the CJK glyphs.
The Cypress PSoC might be of interest. It's a combination FPGA and microcontroller, the low-end demo boards with USB programming get as low as ~$10.
Though most of what you can do with the FPGA would be covered by built-in timer/capture modules or the PICO PIO modules on other chips (though IIRC, some of the boards have analog support in the FPGA if you wanted to do real-time audio processing). I have not found a particular hobbyist use for them, only know it from my father teaching some computer engineering courses and picking since he could use the same board for digital logic and microcontroller programming.
You can theory-craft a non-malicious justification: Insurance trusts Dr. Hibbert will perform the procedure without complications and has negotiated a fixed price of $1K. Insurance doesn't trust Dr. Nick and believes any procedure he performs will result in a second claim later to set things right. Insurance strongly wants you to chose Dr. Hibbert and the only leverage they have is to refuse to pay for Dr. Nick should you go with him.
Not sure how plausible that is though--I suppose they could data-mine frequency of follow-up treatment required per doctor--but I've never observed in network/out of network to correspond to a meaningful metric (our local dentist recommended by all the dental specialists around doesn't deal with any insurance companies, while the in-network dentist is pretty clearly padding their work)
I usually filter by "Retailer: Walmart.com" for any common and/or name-brand item (and price/shipping is usually better than 3rd part sellers anyway). You still have to take your chances for more obscure items, but at least for me that's rare.
A sound font or VST plug-in with appropriate licenses may be another route, but I can't speak to how difficult that would be to work with. It's on my to-do list.