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Please could someone explain why it's necessary to use 24bit/192k - I thought due to Nyquist/Shannon theory that 192k was overkill. In fact, doesn't it create m

by _joel 9y ago

Please could someone explain why it's necessary to use 24bit/192k - I thought due to Nyquist/Shannon theory that 192k was overkill. In fact, doesn't it create more ear strain listening to higher frequency sample rates?

firegrind 9y ago
Play lower and higher quality encodings through a decent size of sound system (2kW upwards) to discover what all those frequencies do
- andresgottlieb 9y ago
  You might find this interesting: https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
  - firegrind 9y ago
    Thanks ! I'll read through that this evening
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- _joel 9y ago
  I think you need to lookup Nyquist/Shannon as already alluded to in this post. Plus it's about the quality of the playback, not how loud it is. Having said that, after spending a weekend in a field in Cambridge, in front of a speaker, my hearing is now pretty shot :)
xxxn 9y ago
DSP works better at a higher sample rates, for obvious reasons, so in a music studio higher is better. Music software will often apply 4x or more oversampling when run at 44.1k which is degrading in the time domain even if the result is better than no oversampling, so recording at high rates avoids that. Using it as a consumer is pointless, you cant hear those frequencies at all. Adults typically cant even hear up to nyqust at 44.1k. If youre a big music fan youve probably ruined your ears so good luck hearing anything above like 15k tbh. 16 bit was a compromise to do with wanting to keep CDs from being the size of dinner plates, 24 bit is legitimately better, but you're not going to notice with typical music.
dsr_ 9y ago
For playback, 16 bits / 44.1KHz is fine. No humans have ears that can reliably distinguish more than that. For editing and production, more bits per sample and more samples per second make it possible to mix sources without reducing quality of the final output. There is no advantage to that final output being 24/192, or 20/88. There is no ear strain that comes from higher sample rates, though.
SyneRyder 9y ago
I was just about to reply that using only 44.1kHz means at higher frequencies, you're getting hardly any samples per cycle, and representing a high-frequency sine wave with something more like a square wave - ie not an accurate representation, and really harsh. However! Xiph.org has a video demonstration using oscilloscopes, showing that high-frequencies at 20kHz still are perfectly represented even with just 44.1kHz recording. It's here if anyone is interested, switch the Chapter Selection on the video to the Stairsteps chapter: https://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml https://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml

by _joel 9y ago

firegrind 9y ago

Play lower and higher quality encodings through a decent size of sound system (2kW upwards) to discover what all those frequencies do

andresgottlieb 9y ago
You might find this interesting: https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
- firegrind 9y ago
  Thanks ! I'll read through that this evening
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
_joel 9y ago
I think you need to lookup Nyquist/Shannon as already alluded to in this post. Plus it's about the quality of the playback, not how loud it is. Having said that, after spending a weekend in a field in Cambridge, in front of a speaker, my hearing is now pretty shot :)

xxxn 9y ago

DSP works better at a higher sample rates, for obvious reasons, so in a music studio higher is better. Music software will often apply 4x or more oversampling when run at 44.1k which is degrading in the time domain even if the result is better than no oversampling, so recording at high rates avoids that. Using it as a consumer is pointless, you cant hear those frequencies at all. Adults typically cant even hear up to nyqust at 44.1k. If youre a big music fan youve probably ruined your ears so good luck hearing anything above like 15k tbh. 16 bit was a compromise to do with wanting to keep CDs from being the size of dinner plates, 24 bit is legitimately better, but you're not going to notice with typical music.

dsr_ 9y ago

For playback, 16 bits / 44.1KHz is fine. No humans have ears that can reliably distinguish more than that. For editing and production, more bits per sample and more samples per second make it possible to mix sources without reducing quality of the final output. There is no advantage to that final output being 24/192, or 20/88. There is no ear strain that comes from higher sample rates, though.

SyneRyder 9y ago

I was just about to reply that using only 44.1kHz means at higher frequencies, you're getting hardly any samples per cycle, and representing a high-frequency sine wave with something more like a square wave - ie not an accurate representation, and really harsh. However! Xiph.org has a video demonstration using oscilloscopes, showing that high-frequencies at 20kHz still are perfectly represented even with just 44.1kHz recording. It's here if anyone is interested, switch the Chapter Selection on the video to the Stairsteps chapter: https://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml https://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml