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I don't think there are flaws in the article as you claim. It already explicitly explains that oversampling at the ADC or DAC is an acceptable engineering solut
by nayuki 9y ago
I don't think there are flaws in the article as you claim. It already explicitly explains that oversampling at the ADC or DAC is an acceptable engineering solution:
> Oversampling is simple and clever. You may recall from my A Digital Media Primer for Geeks that high sampling rates provide a great deal more space between the highest frequency audio we care about (20kHz) and the Nyquist frequency (half the sampling rate). This allows for simpler, smoother, more reliable analog anti-aliasing filters, and thus higher fidelity. This extra space between 20kHz and the Nyquist frequency is essentially just spectral padding for the analog filter.
> That's only half the story. Because digital filters have few of the practical limitations of an analog filter, we can complete the anti-aliasing process with greater efficiency and precision digitally. The very high rate raw digital signal passes through a digital anti-aliasing filter, which has no trouble fitting a transition band into a tight space. After this further digital anti-aliasing, the extra padding samples are simply thrown away. Oversampled playback approximately works in reverse.
> This means we can use low rate 44.1kHz or 48kHz audio with all the fidelity benefits of 192kHz or higher sampling (smooth frequency response, low aliasing) and none of the drawbacks (ultrasonics that cause intermodulation distortion, wasted space). Nearly all of today's analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and digital-to-analog converters (DACs) oversample at very high rates. Few people realize this is happening because it's completely automatic and hidden.
The main point of the article is to argue that storing or transmitting music above 16-bit, 48 kHz is wasteful and potentially harmful. It still fully condones using higher specs for audio capture, editing, and rendering.
- flavio81 9y ago> I don't think there are flaws in the article as you claim. It already explicitly explains that oversampling at the ADC or DAC is an acceptable engineering solution Of course it is acceptable. Even 14 bit audio at 36KHz with a great DAC would be fairly nice, acceptable. What the article claims is that 192KHz is useless, of no benefit. And i contend that it is of benefit when you want more than just good or acceptable performance. Not if you have a run of the mill DAC and OK headphones/speakers, but it is if you are a music lover and critical listener.
- stephen_g 9y agoYou've missed the point though - no human has demonstrated the ability to be able to distinguish the fidelity of audio above 44.1kHz sampling in a properly controlled comparison test (double blind). This empirical result is to be expected given the biology of the ear and the science of sampling theory, as the article explains. It doesn't matter if you're a music lover or critical listener!
- sjwright 9y ago> What the article claims is that 192KHz is useless, of no benefit. The article claims that 192KHz downloads are of no benefit. It's right there in the article's title. It's difficult to not accuse you of willfully misinterpreting his argument.