Srinath_Murthy
New Member
Re subject, some interesting info that I came across today...
As to human hearing and the supposed benefits of much higher sampling rates (48 kHz, 96 kHz and higher vs. the standard CD rate of 44.1 khz/16-bit) yes, you are correct. There isn't any point, because the conventional 44.1 kHz sampling rate of standard CD recordings will fully cover the uppermost limits of human hearing. Indeed, after our teen years, most males can't hear anything above 15 kHz. Not that it matters, because there is little or no musical information of importance in those ultra-high frequencies.
The best DVD-A and SACD recordings sound better to many enthusiasts because much greater care is taken in the recording and engineering. Some engineers report that the studio noise floor is improved, which one might expect from a 24-bit recording because each "bit" adds 6 dB of improved signal-to-noise ratio, so a 24-bit recording has a theoretical range of 24 X 6 = 144 dB, compared to CD's 16 bits (96 dB). These formats also permit a bigger dynamic range, but even here, conventional CD will cover the audible dynamic range of the most extreme orchestral or instrumental dynamics. Still, there is a consensus that on SACDs and DVD-A's, miking is superior to accommodate the higher bit rate and number of bits and this trend shouldn't be discouraged.
One fascinating study presented at a recent meeting of the Audio Engineering Society by E. Brad Meyer and David R. Moran, longtime audio enthusiasts and members of the Boston Audio Society, showed that listeners were unable to detect the presence of a 44.1-kHz, 16-bit A-to-D and D-to-A converter when it was inserted as a ?filter? in the two-channel analog output from a high-end DVD-A/SACD player. (DVD-Audio uses a 192-kHz/24-bit PCM system and SACD uses Sony?s 1-bit/2.8442 MHz ?Direct Stream Digital? system.) The results of the study are published in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, September 2007 (Volume 55, Number 9). After hundreds of double-blind listening comparisons, the test subjects who participated were unable to distinguish any change in the SACD or DVD-Audio signals when they were ?filtered? by the standard two-channel 16-bit/44.1-kHz CD system, which means that imposing a 44.1-kHz sampling rate and 16-bit dynamic range onto the SACD/DVD-Audio signals in no way degraded the music signals.
This rather controversial study nevertheless confirms my own experience in a casual listening experiment performed in the mixing studios of Chesky Records (co-owner and composer/producer, David Chesky, is a friend) in New York. There were six of us present, all senior editors and writers about sound and recording, and none of us could reliably identify or distinguish 44.1 kHz/16-bit from 96 kHz or higher (24-bit) recordings using identical music sources.
As to human hearing and the supposed benefits of much higher sampling rates (48 kHz, 96 kHz and higher vs. the standard CD rate of 44.1 khz/16-bit) yes, you are correct. There isn't any point, because the conventional 44.1 kHz sampling rate of standard CD recordings will fully cover the uppermost limits of human hearing. Indeed, after our teen years, most males can't hear anything above 15 kHz. Not that it matters, because there is little or no musical information of importance in those ultra-high frequencies.
The best DVD-A and SACD recordings sound better to many enthusiasts because much greater care is taken in the recording and engineering. Some engineers report that the studio noise floor is improved, which one might expect from a 24-bit recording because each "bit" adds 6 dB of improved signal-to-noise ratio, so a 24-bit recording has a theoretical range of 24 X 6 = 144 dB, compared to CD's 16 bits (96 dB). These formats also permit a bigger dynamic range, but even here, conventional CD will cover the audible dynamic range of the most extreme orchestral or instrumental dynamics. Still, there is a consensus that on SACDs and DVD-A's, miking is superior to accommodate the higher bit rate and number of bits and this trend shouldn't be discouraged.
One fascinating study presented at a recent meeting of the Audio Engineering Society by E. Brad Meyer and David R. Moran, longtime audio enthusiasts and members of the Boston Audio Society, showed that listeners were unable to detect the presence of a 44.1-kHz, 16-bit A-to-D and D-to-A converter when it was inserted as a ?filter? in the two-channel analog output from a high-end DVD-A/SACD player. (DVD-Audio uses a 192-kHz/24-bit PCM system and SACD uses Sony?s 1-bit/2.8442 MHz ?Direct Stream Digital? system.) The results of the study are published in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, September 2007 (Volume 55, Number 9). After hundreds of double-blind listening comparisons, the test subjects who participated were unable to distinguish any change in the SACD or DVD-Audio signals when they were ?filtered? by the standard two-channel 16-bit/44.1-kHz CD system, which means that imposing a 44.1-kHz sampling rate and 16-bit dynamic range onto the SACD/DVD-Audio signals in no way degraded the music signals.
This rather controversial study nevertheless confirms my own experience in a casual listening experiment performed in the mixing studios of Chesky Records (co-owner and composer/producer, David Chesky, is a friend) in New York. There were six of us present, all senior editors and writers about sound and recording, and none of us could reliably identify or distinguish 44.1 kHz/16-bit from 96 kHz or higher (24-bit) recordings using identical music sources.
. right?
