Lavry anyone?

[mazz]

mp3s sound much better when converted from a good high resolution 24 bit source, in my experience. And the point that having your music in as high quality format as possible will give you more options as hopefully better and better online delivery methods come down the pike.

I don't do nearly as much acoustic recording as you guys do, but I've heard great things about all the AD converters mentioned. Don't overlook the importance of the D/A conversion as well. I added a Benchmark D/A a few years ago and it really opened up the sound and gave my speakers another few years of life. I think some of the units you are interested in do both A/D and D/A. That would be something to look seriously at, IMO.

Have fun shopping!!!

Mazz

[billg1]

If I hadn't of run out of money, I would have probably bought the Lavry blue modular a/d d/a.
Lavry, Weiss, Prism, are pretty much top of the line, though there are Myteks, and a few others.

If you need 192, and 4mic preamps, and whatever else there is the Prism Orpheus for about $4500.

http://www.proaudioreview.com/article/18432

This always sparks debate, but as far a needing 192 . . . There was a white paper written by Dan Lavry that claims that the advantage of recording at 192 is marketing hype. He makes the claim that it can actually be more accurate to record at lower rates. The claim is that 100% of all information is captured at a speed twice the highest frequency, most mics only capture to 20khz & anything more than twice that can actually cause problems because accuracy is easier to achieve at slower rates.

a quote from a Lavry rep;

"A recording made accurately at 44.1 kHz will always sound better (or more "analog") than an inaccurate recording made at 96 or 192 kHz. In many cases this would be mostly due to jitter in the AD and DA conversion, as versus the sample rate. But even in these cases, the degradation is almost certain to be caused by more than just this one source of inaccuracy."

I know there are tons of people who disagree & maybe they know more than than Lavry, just thought it something to consider if you're planning on breaking the bank to get to 192.

Because I'm poor I like his viewpoint!

[Len911]

I'm not gonna debate Mr. Lavry, personally I would probably purchase one of his converters at 22.2 khz if he made one and it was entry level priced,lol!!

[Dwayne Russell]

"A recording made accurately at 44.1 kHz will always sound better (or more "analog") than an inaccurate recording made at 96 or 192 kHz. In many cases this would be mostly due to jitter in the AD and DA conversion, as versus the sample rate. But even in these cases, the degradation is almost certain to be caused by more than just this one source of inaccuracy."

I know there are tons of people who disagree & maybe they know more than than Lavry, just thought it something to consider if you're planning on breaking the bank to get to 192.

Because I'm poor I like his viewpoint!

Having recorded in the digital world longer than most any one else in this business I have dealt with that idea for a long time. My first recordings made in 1889 were sampled at 100K. I disagree with the twice over theory. If you change or eliminate a high frequency it will effect the lower ones. Any one who rolls of highs and hears the sound change knows that. Therefore the same is true for frequencies above 40K. And because the curve is exponential if you take away frequencies like at 40K it will effect everything below it. So the higher you can sample the better. But 192 is way up there. I would only do it if I had the power and the money.

[rld]

Having recorded in the digital world longer than most any one else in this business I have dealt with that idea for a long time.
My first recordings made in 1889 were sampled at 100K.

Damn dude, you really were ahead of your time.

[Dwayne Russell]

Having recorded in the digital world longer than most any one else in this business I have dealt with that idea for a long time.
My first recordings made in 1889 were sampled at 100K.

Damn dude, you really were ahead of your time.

yep. We were one of only a handful of people that had that system.

[billg1]

I think the point he was trying to make in that white paper was that if you're recording with a mic, none even claim to be able to reproduce audio over 20khz. so you're risking quality hits caused by faster sampling rates to deal with content that isn't there (or isn't musical). at least that's the way I understood it. We can rest assured that mics DON'T produce anything over 20khz or the manufacturers would be all about blowing their horn in the spec sheets. a u87 is rated at 20khz but I've heard engineers claim that it really topped out at a little over 19khz in their test, so a 20khz spec might be a rounded up example used just to match the range of human hearing. So if you're using a mic it's a reasonable assumption that there's nothing over 20khz unless it's a buildup of noise.

Of course if you're dealing with synth based music and can produce sounds over 20khz I guess everything changes.

I can't hear even close to 20khz so I'll have to take someone's word for it!

[Dwayne Russell]

I think the point he was trying to make in that white paper was that if you're recording with a mic, none even claim to be able to reproduce audio over 20khz. so you're risking quality hits caused by faster sampling rates to deal with content that isn't there (or isn't musical). at least that's the way I understood it. We can rest assured that mics DON'T produce anything over 20khz or the manufacturers would be all about blowing their horn in the spec sheets. a u87 is rated at 20khz but I've heard engineers claim that it really topped out at a little over 19khz in their test, so a 20khz spec might be a rounded up example used just to match the range of human hearing. So if you're using a mic it's a reasonable assumption that there's nothing over 20khz unless it's a buildup of noise.

Of course if you're dealing with synth based music and can produce sounds over 20khz I guess everything changes.

I can't hear even close to 20khz so I'll have to take someone's word for it!

Cycles over 20k ARE there.

[billg1]

If I'm mic'ing everything and my mic can't reproduce over 20k than what could be there other than noise? I'm seriously asking here. In Lavry's paper he states that mics (most mics) don't reproduce anything beyond 20khz, which I believe . . . and that the Nyquist theory is that 100% of all information with zero distortion is achieved with 2x the highest freq., either he's wrong or a lot of people are imagining things.

In case there's anyone on earth who hasn't read Lavry's paper, here's the meat . . .

" The notion that more is better may appeal to one's common sense. Presented with analogies
such as more pixels for better video, or faster clock to speed computers, one may be misled to
believe that faster sampling will yield better resolution and detail. The analogies are wrong.
The great value offered by Nyquist's theorem is the realization that we have ALL the
information with 100% of the detail, and no distortions, without the burden of "extra fast"
sampling.

Nyquist pointed out that the sampling rate needs only to exceed twice the signal bandwidth.
What is the audio bandwidth? Research shows that musical instruments may produce energy
above 20 KHz, but there is little sound energy at above 40KHz. Most microphones do not pick
up sound at much over 20KHz. Human hearing rarely exceeds 20KHz"

[Dwayne Russell]

If I'm mic'ing everything and my mic can't reproduce over 20k than what could be there other than noise?

what is there is the overtones from the tones you hear. Your mic CAN pick them up. It's your sample an hold process that is not picking them up cause you got it set to 48K or what ever.

Human hearing and human perception are different. I disagree with nyguist.