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Random thought

What was ever the point of technological advances in digital audio in sound production/recording/output etc. to reach the frequency output of 44khz (starting with CD's) all the way to 192khz when the human hearing limit is only capable of distinguishing any frequency from 20khz or below? Makes the whole "audio war" seem kind of silly from this standpoint.

Anyone want to discuss this?

You are mixing all kinds of frequencies here without knowing what they are.

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Originally posted by Meat187 You are mixing all kinds of frequencies here without knowing what they are.

Where did I mix up anything?

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Originally posted by stealthman Where did I mix up anything?

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Originally posted by stealthman to reach the frequency output of 44khz (starting with CD's) all the way to 192khz when the human hearing limit is only capable of distinguishing any frequency from 20khz or below? Makes the whole "audio war" seem kind of silly from this standpoint.

The whole point of high frequency sampling is not just to capture inaudible frequencies, but to minimise digital aliasing in the audible spectrum.

Derp.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that, technically, the human ear cannot percieve sound between 20khz and 192khz (which I think is the highest known level for sound recording, production etc). Then I asked, what is the point of recording, producing or manufacturing audio hardware (like phonograph needles for example) that can output up to 50khz (for example)?

The 20 kHz are the (maximum hearable) sound frequency, while the 44.1 kHz are the usual CD sampling frequency. The sampling frequency is chosen to be greater two times the signal bandwidth to follow Nyquist's sampling theorem. Google it.

I don't know what you mean by that 192 kHz but either you're talking about the mp3 bitrate (which is something completely different) or about some hardware sampling frequency, which again has to do with signal processing accuracy and not with the sound frequency you actually hear.

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Originally posted by Meat187 I don't know what you mean by that 192 kHz but either you're talking about the mp3 bitrate (which is something completely different) or about some hardware sampling frequency, which again has to do with signal processing accuracy and not with the sound frequency you actually hear.

I'm not talking about 192kbps. I mean, 192,000 hz. Another thing..the DVD audio standard is 96khz, does the same reason apply for what you mentioned in your post (nyquist method)?

The basic distinction you need to make is that those sampling frequencies determine the accuracy of your digital signal representation. In theory you only need to follow the Nyquist theorem to get a flawless representation, in practise however you use filters which are imperfect and for those it can be beneficial to increase the sampling rate even further. Whether you can actually hear the difference is a difficult question that depends on a lot of things (hardware, audio source, etc), but the signal representation is definitely more accurate.

I have several pairs of headphones which are good (Pioneer HDJ-1000, Sennheiser HD 25 MK II), but I never heard any difference between 320 and FLAC quality. A while ago I invested in a pair of Sennheiser HD 650 and an EMU 0404 DAC, and that was when the entire spectrum of how I understand music changed.

Anyway, the point I'm making is that many of this high-end DVD-audio is meaningless unless you have good audio gear. To even hear the difference between a 192 kbps and 320 kbps with 44KHz already requires a decent set-up, while all this DVD-Audio stuff is most for people that just want to feel good about having the maximum quality. I've had some DVD-audio material that goes beyond 2500 kbps with a sample-rate of 96KHz, but seriously, I hear absolutely no difference. At all.

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Originally posted by Chimney I hear absolutely no difference. At all.

That's because high sampling rates aren't exactly for people listening to music, they're for people who need to use an accurate audio signal. I buy music I'm not going to do anything with but listen to from Amazon because it's cheaper than say, beatport. But let's say I need to buy some songs because I want to put together a mix or what have you. Well I'm gonna buy them on beatport or even better, buy the CDs because I know that after I put together the mix, and render it down to whatever I feel like doing that day, usually 256kbps for mixes, the audio will actually sound like an mp3 at 256kbps.

Now let's say I use the tracks I bought on Amazon, these are already mp3 @ 256kbps. So I do my mix in Ableton, then I render the mix to WAV. This WAV is now supposedly a lossless audio signal, but I used mp3s to make this WAV so it's actually NOT lossless. And that's not the end of it. When I pop this mix into Audacity and go down to 256kbps mp3, then that's another reduction in quality. So I'm essentially using a lossy track, then making it even lossier.

At least, I think that's what happens, but I'm not totally sure. And that's just a really simple example, the same could be said about production. If I want to use a sound in a track, then I would prefer to have a lossless version (or at least something of very high quality) because then I know that I am hearing this sound as perfectly as I possibly can. In production, sample qualities are extremely important. It's very difficult to make a vocal sample at 128kbps mp3 sound really great.

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