whats best?

[multitrak_ent]

I will only speak for myself here, but I never said NOT to go up in sample rate, only if choosing between 16 bit high sample rate vs 24 bit 44.1K sample rate I would choose the later. The reason for this is that quantization error is going to be more noticeable when doing a significant of amount of audio processing, than the distortion of the upper harmonics will be.

sorry should had been more clear. i was meaning more the fact that you would choose to go up in bit before sampling rate.

A sample rate of 44.1K will capture audio in the 20K range, it will just not capture it as accurately as a higher sample rate will

so of course 48 88 and 96 capture everything at 20k better . but do they capture more, i was under the impression that 48 will get 24hz one way and 24khz the other way, likewise with 88 and 96, is this true?
meaning the higher sample rate the larger the spectrum, sort of like a bigger canvas for a painter.
( yes i do understand that our hearing is limited said to be 20 hz to 20 khz but gets worse as we get older)
but understanding and doing research into music theory and harmonics leavs me to believe that it makes a difference cutting out harmonics.

also if we are going to cut out the frequanceys anyway does it matter that there in there in the first place, why do we have the option of 96khz if we go down to 44.1?
Is moving up in sample rate giving you some buffer room?

 

[ds21]

I may as well jump-in, I will also say given one or the other, and both converters of high quality, I'd go with the BitDepth, I believe that the brain will adjust to Frequency (or lack of) more easily then dynamics. But for me this many comes form listening not theory.

 

[masteringhouse]

also if we are going to cut out the frequanceys anyway does it matter that there in there in the first place, why do we have the option of 96khz if we go down to 44.1?
Is moving up in sample rate giving you some buffer room?

It's giving a designer "buffer room" in regards to the type of filter that he uses to prevent alias frequencies. So yes this is part of it. The fact that higher sample rate captures frequencies higher than 20K doesn't matter per se since these will be filtered out (hopefully) before going down to 44.1.

My main point was that higher sample rates capture higher frequencies more accurately. Let's take a 20K sine wave for an example. At 20K a 44.1K sample rate will sample this at 2 spots, hopefully at a crest and trough point of the wave. The the point at which the crest/trough is sampled will most likely not be at the maximum point of the wave so already we have "distortion" in terms of the amplitude of the wave. Furthmore we only have 2 points of reference for the wave (on and off) so we essentially have a digital representation of a square wave at this point. If we increase the sample rate we will have more points of reference and the wave will be represented more accurately in both amplitude and it's original sine wave form. Also note that when a sine wave is represented as a square wave there will actually be more harmonics generated on the D/A side. These need to be filtered out appropriately or you may get aliasing causing a harshness in the audio. This is where the filters come into play. They will need to filter out all frequencies above nyquist (frequency at half the sample rate) to ensure that these will not be generated. Creating a filter that does this isn't easy, so it's good to have some of the "breathing room" that a higher sample rate provides.

Hope this long-winded reply answers your question a bit better. If you really want the details of all of this (and if you have aspirations of being a pro audio engineer you should). Check out Ken Pohlman's book "Principles of Digital Audio".

 

[multitrak_ent]

thanx mastering house, now I understand how it works as a buffer, good explanation there , makes alot of sense now. thanx again for your time and help.

 

[multitrak_ent]

thanx mastering house, now I understand how it works as a buffer, good explanation there , makes alot of sense now. thanx again for your time and help.

 

[Sonixx]

This will give you a very hi-quality conversion...

44.1K/48K Clock

Hi Quality Wordclock - This will do more for the quality of your recording than jumping up in Sample rate. Don't scrimp here. It's a one time purchase.

Quality 24 bit Converter - Buy the best 24 converter you can afford.

Consideration: If you jump to 88K or 96K, you'll divide your computing power in half or more. And quality 88K/96K wordclock is pretty expensive.

 

[jayster10125]

math

By the math, there is no advantage to recording at a higher sampling rate than you're going to publish in. So, if you're going to CD, you may as well record at 44.1kHz.

Converting to 48kHz or 96kHz to 44.1kHz involves some nasty math because the ratio is 1.088435374. See this explanation. (Scroll down to sample rate conversion).

Bit depth conversion is much simpler. Using 24 bits of dynamic range when recording makes it easier to get good levels above the noise floor without overloads. The conversion to 16 bits does not introduce artifacts, so 24 bit is the way to go.

sorry to go back so far, i just saw this

we may be splitting hairs here, but by the math, it IS more accurate to have recorded at a higher sample rate and converted down to 44.1 than it is to have recorded at 44.1 in the first place

as far as sample rate and bit depth are concerned, i still don't know which one matters more, but just because your final medium is CD, doesn't mean you shouldn't consider recording at a higher sample rate for best quality