- 48 kHz can be more easily (and more importantly - accurately) resampled to other common sample rates (which tend to be round multiples of 8). - While 44.1 kH

- 48 kHz can be more easily (and more importantly - accurately) resampled to other common sample rates (which tend to be round multiples of 8). - While 44.1 kHz can theoretically sample the entire range of human hearing there are some practical considerations that give 48 kHz an advantage. That said, there are few reasons to use sample rates above 48 kHz: https://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html https://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html - Most importantly 48 kHz is essentially "the standard" on most operating systems, hardware, hardware drivers, various audio frameworks, codecs, audio applications, audio editors, etc, etc. For example, 48 kHz is the only required sample rate in the Intel High Definition Audio Specification (section 7.3.4.7): https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/product-specifications/high-definition-audio-specification.pdf https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents... Section 2.2 also describes that the timing for the HDA stream format is based on 48 kHz sample rates and other sample rates require some gymnastics (section 5.4.1) to implement. - Perhaps not surprising to the HN crowd there can be various issues with other sample rates and resampling across different hardware, operating systems, etc: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=154538 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=154538 https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chromecast/k6JZRM2TUco https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chromecast/k6... https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5794 https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5794 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/discuss-webrtc/EGvSbzQJutg https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/discuss-webrtc/EGvSb... https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=86767 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=86767 In 2018 we should be faithfully playing, recording, and transporting audio at 48 kHz. Legacy applications such as the PSTN, CDs, etc will continue to run at their various rates but I can't think of many valid reasons for new applications to use anything other than 48 kHz.