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Just wondering who's recording at 88.2kHz or better and how much better do you think it sounds. I've got these ancient converters that don't go above 48kHz and wondering if I need to upgrade. Thanks, Elser

Hey Elser,There are many varying opinions on this topic, but I believe the most common answer is anything above 44.1 is not worth the extra space it takes. Combined with 24 bit and that is the best sound vs size.Here is an older thread on the subject:http://taxi.proboards27.com/index.cgi?a ... 989&page=1

Quote:Just wondering who's recording at 88.2kHz or better and how much better do you think it sounds. I've got these ancient converters that don't go above 48kHz and wondering if I need to upgrade. Thanks, ElserI normally record at 24-bit/44.1kHz and then dither down to 16-bit/44.1kHz at the last thing I do in my "process". If I'm doing music directly for a film or one of that them thar TV shows , then the 44.1kHz gets changed to 48kHz because that's native for DVD and that's usually how they want it. The end result is then 16-bit/48kHz.

Hey Dusty, thanks for the link. It's funny, I was really just wondering if I should buy a new A/D converter, and I don't really enjoy discussions about analogue vs. digital and that sort of stuff, but ever since the 'mixing board' thread, which I kind of avoided, my wheels have been spinning, so here goes.Someone pointed out in the mixing board thread that digital is like a staircase and analogue is like a hill. But isn't the smoothness of the hill just a perception? After all, all matter is composed of particles so while the hill appears to be a smooth gradual ascent, if one looked at it through a microscope you would see it's actually composed of tons of tiny pieces.Same thing with digital photography, as the resolution goes up, the picture appears to be more 'analogous' to what the eye actually sees. So the same must apply to sound, as the bit depth or the sampling rate goes up the sound should get better. Of course we're unfortunately limited by 16bit/44.1 but things like POW/r dithering are making that process better.I recently read a review of a Korg hard disk recorder which the reviewers thought sounds fantastic. It records at 1bit/5.2megahurz.Korg offers an explanation of the technology here.http://www.korg.com/mr/Future_Proof_Rec ... ained.pdfI just scanned it but for those technically inclined it might prove interesting.This might be beating a dead horse, but I've been thinking about it for the last week or so, so maybe now it'll be off my chest and I can get some peace. Heavy sigh...

Quote:Someone pointed out in the mixing board thread that digital is like a staircase and analogue is like a hill. But isn't the smoothness of the hill just a perception? After all, all matter is composed of particles so while the hill appears to be a smooth gradual ascent, if one looked at it through a microscope you would see it's actually composed of tons of tiny pieces.Same thing with digital photography, as the resolution goes up, the picture appears to be more 'analogous' to what the eye actually sees. It was me You´re right that "all matter is composed of particles", but my point was that analog has more of these "particles" and that´s why it appears to be smoother. You can see the "steps" in analog too if you "look at it through a microscope", yes...but there´s a whole a lot more of those "steps". In digital audio we can have only 24 of these "steps" (at the moment). The sample rate will only get you a bigger image of those "steps", but the actual depth is not changing. (like in digital photohraphy, as the resolution goes up the image is just bigger and seems to have more depth, although that´s not the case.)After all, everything is "just a perception". The music itself is the most important, not the medium (wow! Someone actually reads my posts and better yet you actually thought about it. But I´m really sorry if I disturbed your peace of mind )

Quote: In digital audio we can have only 24 of these "steps" (at the moment). The sample rate will only get you a bigger image of those "steps", but the actual depth is not changing. (like in digital photohraphy, as the resolution goes up the image is just bigger and seems to have more depth, although that´s not the case.)Actually this not correct, The sample rate are the steps and 24 bit is how acurate each step is described.

in my experience the bit resolution is more important than the sample rate (as long it's at 44.1 khz).this may be diffrent if you use high-end converters in the 10k $ - range.... since I don't do that, my setup is (cubase SX 3):* 44.1 khz* 32 bit floating point (intern resolution)* RME hammerfall (audio interface)the 32 bit don't make a diffrence in the rough recording, BUT they make a diffrence in processing the tracks (i.e. mix & master). dithering down to 16 bit should be the absolutely last step - any editing of the audio after the dithering easely can confuse the bit-order in the audio.if you want to try higher sample rates, than choose a rate that is divisible with 44.1 - that is, 88.2 for example.cheers,martin

Quote:Quote: In digital audio we can have only 24 of these "steps" (at the moment). The sample rate will only get you a bigger image of those "steps", but the actual depth is not changing. (like in digital photohraphy, as the resolution goes up the image is just bigger and seems to have more depth, although that´s not the case.)Actually this not correct, The sample rate are the steps and 24 bit is how accurate each step is described.Just to clarify terminology if I can as an electrical engineer (not a music engineer)...To convert an analog waveform to digital, a sample of the amplitude of the analog waveform is taken very often- at a rate that far exceeds how fast a typical waveform's analog "shape" can change. How often these samples are taken is the sampling rate such as 44.1KHz. Time is the inverse of frequency (which a sampling rate is), so at 44.1KHz, a "snapshot" of the waveform's amplitude is taken every .0227 milliseconds or .0000227 seconds. That snapshot is converted to a binary number of so many bits (binary digits) or resolution. With 24 bit resolution that number is rounded to the nearest MAX/(2^24), making each "step" worth 5.96 x 10^-8 of the MAX. That means any small difference in amplitude less than 5.96 x 10^-8 of MAX will not be noticed. The music then becomes basically a list of binary numbers. You can see why the above numbers are pretty damn good.For 88.2KHz, the samples are taken every .00001134 seconds (e.g. twice as often).At 32 bit resolution each sample step is worth 2.33 x 10^-10 of MAX.There is a point at which faster sample rates and/or increased step resolution provides no additional value to the human ear but make file sizes larger. That's for the audio engineers to tell us.Anyway, I hope I did all the math right and explained it all correctly. Casey

Wow Casey,I think you have enlightened half of us, and thoroughly confused the other half of us As a former math/physics guy, I loved your definition, it all makes sense to me now. (How it works, not what to use )

Quote:Quote: In digital audio we can have only 24 of these "steps" (at the moment). The sample rate will only get you a bigger image of those "steps", but the actual depth is not changing. (like in digital photohraphy, as the resolution goes up the image is just bigger and seems to have more depth, although that´s not the case.)Actually this not correct, The sample rate are the steps and 24 bit is how acurate each step is described....Yes and no (I guess you just misunderstood what I meant )Here´s what I meant by "steps=bits" 8-bits = 8 "steps" 16-bits = 16 "steps" sample rate = cycles/samples per secondIn digital audio the bit depth means the dynamic range. (Casey gave an excellent explanation on that)When the sample rate is 88.2kHz, the converter takes 88200 "snapshots" of the sound per second, but it doesn´t mean it has greater dynamic range than with lower sample rate (if the bit depth is the same).In digital photography the color depth means the possible amount of distinct colors. If the image is bigger, it doesn´t mean it can have more distinct colors than a smaller picture if the color depth is the same. And with "bigger image" I meant the extended frequency response.....If that makes any sense to anybody