PLEASE NOTE, THESE DATA WERE ALSO ANALYZED FOR A SUBSEQUENT PUBLICATION in eLife. PLEASE SEE https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.43226 FOR MORE INFORMATION. Recordings from Pacinian corpuscles in the 1960s showed that touch elicits symmetric activation followed by rapid adaptation. Sinusoidal stimulation resulted in frequency doubling within a sensitive frequency band, suggesting that these receptors function as frequency-tuned vibration sensors. At the time, the surrounding lamellar capsule was proposed to generate these response dynamics by acting as a mechanical filter. However, similar response dynamics have since been seen in many other mechanoreceptors, leading to controversy over the specificity of this hypothesis. Using a combination of in vivo electrophysiology, feedback-controlled mechanical stimulation, and simulation, we resolve this controversy in favor of a systems-level mechanical filter that is independent of specific anatomical features or specific mechanoelectrical transduction channels.