Where do you guys stand on Sample Rate (Khz)

The best plug ever made.
Yer ears!
And you can’t go out and BUY better ones.

:slight_smile: i disagree :slight_smile:
They need way too much maintenance to be called best plug’s ever.
Need to clean them at least once a week.

  • they are not consistent in their signalling to the brain and processing is often related to a person’s health when having certain illnesses. (like flue)
    So in fact they are very “unpro” and too unstable to rely on in my opinion.
    :wink:

kind regards,
R.

Most will blindly follow unfortunately.

IMO this is the problem. Everyone thinks they are not biased. We have all read about the different theories that can bias an audio test. The only scientific way is to have a neutral 3rd party do the tests in a controlled audio environment, eliminating all kinds of subtle variables, where there is little chance of any bias. And I would guess 95% have never done this. So yes, it goes back to trusting your ears…but anyone who proclaims they did some “unbiased” tests…I’m not buying it unless the tests were administered by experienced 3rd party.

As for the 3rd party, this is one time you don’t want to visit that $5 per song ME you found on Craigslist. :mrgreen:

I have a audiophilic friend who was preparing himself for months to buy a new interlink from Siltech.

Months of reading reviews and also on forums kept him of the street. Once he had it, he was so pumped up that in a way he was very biased when A/B ing with the old interlink cable, he said everytime, “YES it sounds better”. I was sitting next to him and was talking him to the mouth “Yes I think I hear a difference”. The truth was that I really didn’t here the difference and If there was any I could easily say that it probably was a increase of 0,001 % in good or bad favour. Bottomline is that your mind is the biggest infleuncer.

The reason I was talking him to mouth was to not go into endless (and useless) discussion over what I was hearing and concluding (perception is subjective to me!)

Man I always found it hard to have discussion with audphiles, espacially when trying to convince him that the recording he was listening to was made with cheap ass cables and mics and mixed with digital effects… :laughing:

I repeat: Whatever you hear has to be within the human hearing range.
That’s why I don’t discuss this anymore. I try to tell that we can’t fight nature. If you really want to discuss the sample rate debate, please talk to any Auditory Doctor worth his grain of salt before buying into all misinformation and myths on the internet.

I happened to discuss this with some Auditory Doctors when my mother attended a research group for Tinnitus at the biggest hospital in my home town, country even.
She have had Tinnitus for many years and participated voluntarily in this research after consulting me. She knew I had more than average interest in the subject, after I finished my Sound Engineer education in the mid 90’s (started recording about 1979-80).

PS. For anyone who believe we can “feel” the frequencies above our hearings range, please follow the Fletcher-Munson (phon) curves and figure out how much energy you have to provide, to bring it up at an even level with some lower frequencies (we still can’t hear it, but may feel it).

The only way these high frequencies can be used in medical equipment is due the very hard handed high-pass filtering, using all the energy in specific frequency areas.

If we provided the same amount of power into the lower frequencies (we have no amps that can feed that amount of power across a full frequency spectrum within a musical context).
If we could have provided that power played back, we had burned up and/or exploded.

Think of why we can get hot in a ultrasound treatment. Then think of what we had “felt” when that power had hit us in a full frequency musical context (talk about Wall of Sound :wink:)

Don’t make this harder than it is. Don’t fight nature. It is only good old physics and math, and human auditory system limitations.

I finish: However clever you are, or good you are at cut’n’paste, and how many “mumbo jumbo” words you use:

Whatever you hear has to be within the human hearing range. Agree?

Unless You are an elephant, but it would be making it hard to control the mouse. :mrgreen:

You are probably correct however somehow I’m still not convinced.

Everyday unorganized sounds yes.

But when it comes to music both recorded playback and in live performance.
I believe there is more to it than simple ‘hearing with yer ears’.

That missing ingredient is why humans get ‘touched’ by the sounds.
{‘-’}

Not to reveal any particular location but this hospital… Is it in Oregon? I was there in the early 1980’s when this Tinnitus research was initiated.

Tinnitus, by the way , while well off topic is a truly miserable affliction

The Nyquist (et al) theorem does NOT apply to real-world sounds as it ONLY applies to waveforms that are known over all time, forwards and back.

The Cheung–Marks theorem seems to indicate problems when the functions are not infinite and in the presence of noise.

I don’t pretend to understand all the maths, but I am not willing to accept statements incorrectly applying theorems as ‘fact’ to stymie valid discussion.

Also, the hearing range discussion is a irrelevant. Trying to limit scope to it, just because YOU think that is all that sample rate is relevant to, then using it to dismiss valid discussion of the whole topic is disingenuous and disrespectful.

It’s just that, as often, that the scientific worldview and the magical / wishful thinking of esoterics clash here.

So, here are a few facts, accept them or not, it doesn’t matter - they stay facts:

  1. Every waveform can be represented as the sum of sine waves (Fourier theorem - which is proven)
  2. To represent a sine wave of frequency f, which is the fundamental to every other waveform, a signal rate of 2f is necessary (which is the Nyquist theorem - which is also proven)
  3. Human hearing has an upper range of (at most) about 20 kHz, there is no way for humans to detect frequencies beyond this point, we are simply not equipped. Try to receive ultra short wave (FM radio, or “UKW” as we call it in german) with a pure short wave radio - you’ll fail. Epically. Same for your ears… they are an amazing piece of biology, but they simply can’t detect anything
    above 20 kHz.

There is only one valid conclusion to all of this:

= A signal rate of 40 kHz + (some space for a super steep, high quality low pass filter) is enough.

And, since the people who build the audio devices KNOW all of that, there is a second conclusion, which I leave up to you to figure out.

A little hint: you can even apply some Mark Twain here.

The ONLY thing that is proven is that it is valid at MORE THAN (not exactly) twice the highest required upper frequency, BUT ONLY if the waveform is defined to plus and minus infinity (that is, doubly infinite). And the Cheung–Marks theorem (that is, proved) seems to indicate that being non doubly infinite and the presence of noise upset even this.

In other words, the Nyquist theorem sounds nice, and appears good to use for an argument for going for minimal specs, but it does NOT apply to ANY real-world sounds under ANY real-world conditions, so to continue to use it for ANY justification for one’s DAW sample rate choices is dubious.

I’m not saying I have answers here, but I refuse to accept INCORRECTLY applied theorems as EVIDENCE for ANYTHING.

Now, can we get down to real-world discussions so that we can actually understand what we are really dealing with in DAW work?

Hi Patanjali and it is good to see you here.
I divorced Pro Tools and bought Cubase last week and just today I registered on the Steinberg forum…and saw an old friend!!!.
Now this question you have asked about the best sampling rate to use is a beauty and I have actually done some tests on this.
I didnt do the standard listening test. I used sin waves and recorded them at different sampling frequencies.
What I noticed is that as the sample rate was increased up to 192Khz the sin wave was produced very accurately. However, at lower frequencies (and even at 96Khz) the sin wave was distorted on the recorded waveform. I understood this to mean that though the frequency of the signal was not altered, its harmonics were. Pitch the same but tonally changed.
The implication is that the higher sampling rate may sound better in the upper frequencies but can we hear those frequencies… probably not.
So to answer you question I say yes, you get a more accurate recording at higher sampling rates but no, you cant hear it.

Cheers
Lachlan
PS
I tried to send yo an email last week but it got sent back. Please email me with your new email address.

Aloha l and welcome to the board

But can human beings ‘feel’ it?
{‘-’}

No.

If you don’t have an organ of perception, there is nothing you can sense (= feel).

Being able to “feel” (physically, in terms of kinesthetic sensations, if this is what you mean) frequencies higher than 20 kHz would imply such an insane amount of energy that it would kill you instantly.

Some insects and animals don’t have ears, yet they can sense the vibrations by other means.

I’m not saying that humans DO have such abilities to ‘feel’ higher frequencies (though lower frequencies are felt), but I wouldn’t be as arrogant to claim there are none.

By the way, what happened to your sentence with ‘science and logic’? I had whole lot of things lined up to deal with your lack of that!

Patanjali, as long as there is no hard evidence to backup any claims of higher sample rates being useful, everybody should refuse to waste 50% or more of his CPU power just for some unsubstantiated hearsay and esoteric waffle, seriously.

I need to see significant differences in perception, under strictly controlled circumstances (double blinding, open source and heavily examined LPF design, etc…) between 44,1 kHz and 192 kHz recordings to even CONSIDER those claims being anything more than esoteric mumbo-jumbo.

If it would not cost CPU cycles (and memory, but this is a non-issue nowadays), I wouldn’t be such a nitpicker, but people pay through their noses for moar CPU power (and have to utilize awkward metatechniques such as “freezing”, which is a horrible concept in itself) for exactly NOTHING.

Please understand that I really appreciate your strife for better, more beautiful and clearer sound. I’m all for that and I try to do the same (mostly by learning, but also by getting good equipment, such as the SPL Gainstation 1 I just ordered) - but some efforts are not only futile but even counterproductive.

Believe me, I really like high end equipment (SPL stuff) and I use stuff like Kramer Master Tape and the Slate VBC and all that, which add nuances at most - but I would never even consider going > 48 kHz (and I do 48 kHz only because KORG forces me to).

Science simply doesn’t back any higher sample rates (except in select mathematical processes, this is why some plugins perform upsampling, which is good and necessary and great, but this is about mathematics only, algebraic necessities and all that).

And, here…

I would like to see those as well, but there needs to be some discussion about how that may be achieved. Such things don’t have to be the province of proprietary research or musings by learned experts in obscure forums. Such collaboration can be had by any group interested in knowing the truth.

However, having open discussions about such things is very difficult when you just use dismissive and erroneous arguments to ruin getting to anywhere near such a forum. Those tactics are the enemies of science and engineering.

Suppression, ignorance and choosing the least confronting options are not what the peaks of human achievement are made of. I choose NOT to be mediocre!

Right, Patanjali, and I’m with you there, but this discussion about higher sample rates strongly remind me of “EUR 5,000.- audio cables” and “Argentum nitricum D12”.

It’s not that I would not be open to meaningful evidence, quite the opposite, but it’s basic logic which dictates for me that it’s pointless to go higher than something like 44.1 kHz of sampling rate. This opinion is based on where science stands. We would actually need different mathematics and physics (or biology, if you want to debate human ability to perceive beyond 20 kHz!), not just updates or errata.

There is a difference between “reason allows for something to be valid, even if the probability is low” (if this was the case here, I’d all be “go 96 kHz, just to be on the safe side, should science find out that there IS something”!) and “this is utter nonsense and has nothing to do with reality at all” (which is what is the case here - given high quality LPFs… I totally agree that low quality LPFs may cause horrible differences in sample rates, but this has nothing to do with “Nyquist being invalid” or something similar).

I’d rather investigate IF and WHY there are filter differences between sample rates in some cases… I’m not one of the tinfoil hat guys, but there may be economic interest behind that. :wink:

I’m following this with interest, though I confess to not understanding the mathmatical stuff in here.

That said :wink: it’s interesting to note that it’s been shown that humans are affected by “sound” outside the limits of hearing, of course, we don’t perceive it as sound.

[sounds] above the human audible range (max. 20 kHz) activate the midbrain and diencephalon and evoke various physiological, psychological and behavioral responses.

from Frequencies of Inaudible High-Frequency Sounds Differentially Affect Brain Activity: Positive and Negative Hypersonic Effects

Humans can be affected by “sounds” outside our hearing limits, like in ultrasound treatment (in medical equipment). BUT…

…But to do that we have to bandlimit this sound waves to the upper frequencies only, focusing the energy needed in that frequency band only.

…But within a musical context (I guess we are doing music here), we cannot feel anything up in these frequencies above 20kHz. Because if we provided that amout of energy to play the higher freq to be “felt through” within a musical context, the amount of power provided in the hearing range would have killed us.

…Besides that we have no amplifier to provide such power in a full frequency playback (remember we talk about within a musical context).

Of corse there are frequencies above the human hearing range, as in ultrasound and Roentgen to take two different frequency bands that excist (above our hearing limits). Of corse they excist (nobody has denied that), but not at all present at a “feelable” level within any form of musical context.

So if you want to discuss medical equipment, I suggest another forum :wink:

Again, take a look at the Fletcher-Munson curves (phon curves). How much dBSPL (dB Sound Preassure Level) would you have to provide to make a 48kHz signal loud enough, to even get close to “feelable”?
And then switch of the High-pass Filter…yes sir…what did you say?

Please admit that what we hear, HAS TO BE within the human hearing range. And please discuss this Sample rate debate within a musical (full frequency) context. Please don’t make this harder then it is.

Have nice weekend :slight_smile:

Indeed, BUT guess what happens when we take a waform of only limited time … we’ll get DISTORTION. This distortion is greatest at the very beginning and very end of the waveform.

Now let me give you a homework: calculate how many samples it takes in worst case (from beginning or end of the file) to have this distortion created by time-chopping to be lower than quatisation distortion (you can choose the sampling parameters yourself). Or you may also choose to calculate how many samples it takes to make this distortion less than … let’s say … 1%. That would be more like a real-world problem.

BTW, we DAW users all should be very familiar on problems using Shannon-Nyqvist where it’s not applicable: those clicks what we get when slicing and combining waveforms without using appropriate methods.