thashobs wrote:How do we strive to make digital gear as good as analog? higher sample rates..... new products coming in the next few years include 32-bit 256k sample rates. pro tools as well as all daws will have this.
Agreed.
thashobs wrote:can you hear a difference between an mp3 at 128k vs. 320k if you answered no than your probably over 30 or are almost deaf.
Ha! I'm well over 30 and slightly deaf, but it's still obvious. No argument there.
thashobs wrote:why do people relate the sample rate as being the frequency response. if you say you cant hear a difference between 192k and 44:1 sample rate your an idiot. First the 192k means that the song is sampled 192 thousand times per second 44.1 is only 44 thousand times per second. If you were to draw an analog waveform it would be perfectly curved. A digital waveform under the microscope looks like jagged stairs. the number of jagged edges depends on the sample rate. the higher the sample rate the smoother the digital representation of the analog waveform.
Well, there are other real-world factors that come into play, thashobs, such as speaker/headphone responses and output circuitry/DA converters. D/A converters, for instance, attempt to smooth those stair steps you refer to out. Some do an apparently amazing job of this, which is why a decent "20k" system can conceivably sound better than a much-higher-rated one. MOTU's own interfaces have shown this over the years. I heard that, for some users at least, the 44.1k setting on a certain interface (I've forgotten which one) sounded better to most ears than the 88.2 one.
thashobs wrote:this is why analog sounds so much better. also analogs comparative sample rate of analog gear would be infinite(yes infinity)
Correct, it is one of the main reasons why this is so for many folks. I'd like to point out though that the resolution of analog is not infinite. Measurements of time, distance and mass are subject to Planck length minimums (usually a metre, gram or second to around 10 to the minus 34th+ power), and are effectively quantized, but so fine is this quantisation that science didn't discover it 'till the 20th century:
From the link below: "Combined, these two theories imply that it is impossible to measure position to a precision shorter than the Planck length, or duration to a precision to a shorter time interval than a Planck time."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_length
A heavier overview of Planck units:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_units
From this link below: "This is the ‘quantum of time’, the smallest measurement of time that has any meaning, and is equal to 10-43 seconds. No smaller division of time has any meaning."
http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskEx ... N=77617356
This phenomenon is why I sometimes say we're living in a digital simulation. Even DNA code is digitally defined (mess up a single value and a larger, more-encompassing description is likely to become corrupt).
Sorry. Thought you might appreciate that. At any rate your point is still valid, given the vast difference between what we perceive as analog and what we know as digital. I've always been a fan of Sony's bitstream technology, which I think samples at over 300MHz, for this very reason. It's as if Sony saw the writing on the wall and said, "Let's just nip this bitrate war in the bud".
thashobs wrote:the reason for can hear a difference in sample rates is because even though we cant hear past 20khz: fundamental frequencies still exist in music way beyond 30khz .(they are often called "even order harmonics" that go up to 100khz and beyond) if you don't care about fundamental frequencies or harmonics than you should keep recording at 44.1 but if you do care you should record at higher sample rates. These high frequencies although not audible still resonate and you can still feel and perceive the high frequency content. they also add to the color of the sound.
Agreed, although I'd point out that fundamentals are rarely (if ever) in said range; it's the harmonics you correctly referred to, and odd-order ones too.
This is central to the point I made in a previous post that sum and difference frequencies will be affected too. Some of those harmonics will interact to produce said tones, some of which will be the difference (ie: one freq subtracted from another) between two freqs and others the sum of two or more. Where a subtraction is involved it's easy to see how two higher-than-20k freqs could produce something directly audible.
I also agree with your point that a lot of this stuff is felt, rather than heard. My own theory here is that the brain is allowed to engage in more complex mathematics when these frequencies are allowed through. After all, it's constantly busy adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing all the frequencies we hear in real time, just for entertainment (to keep itself busy, perhaps). This is why I've also said that I don't see how anyone can perceive sounds as they truly are, 'cause we're constantly adding our own involuntary processing to them.
thashobs wrote:also you cant hear bass below 20 hz but can you feel it?
the answer is yes
so why wouldn't frequencies past 20khz make a difference on the clarity of the HF content
Good point. One doesn't hear nearly as much discussion about this end of the bandwidth chop. I don't know if it's still done (I assume so), but CDs have always been rated as having a 20Hz-20kHz response; the sub 20Hz freqs having been deemed too troublesome to deal with whilst mixing (they obviously can seriously affect energy levels at unexpected points in time as they, by definition, contain more energy). I'd agree with you though that it's only logical to assume that something will be lost in the HPF process.
