384khz?

[StanleyB]

Well it seems to me that if a recording is touted as being 192 then it should be just that. If the mics were not capable of 96KHZ there is no point in having a sampling rate any higher than the mic is capable of.

The mic is in the analogue domain. The sampling rate is in the digital domain. The sampling rate refers to how many samples are taken from the analogue waveform, not the frequency of the sampled signal. For best sampling performance the sampling rate has to be at least twice the highest frequency to be sampled. So if the mic was 96khz and the sampling rate was also 96khz, you wouldn't be getting a good signal at all.

[Rothchild]

The mic is in the analogue domain. The sampling rate is in the digital domain. The sampling rate refers to how many samples are taken from the analogue waveform, not the frequency of the sampled signal. For best sampling performance the sampling rate has to be at least twice the highest frequency to be sampled. So if the mic was 96khz and the sampling rate was also 96khz, you wouldn't be getting a good signal at all.

Martin is right (well you both are), the top frequency captured by a 192kHz (sample rate) recording is 96kHz so the mic needs to be able to accurately capture frequencies up to this point in order to make use of the available bandwidth.

[Sherwood]

No disagreement on your last point. Too much of what is touted as audiophile fare preys on the vanity and ego of potential buyers and their susceptibility to marketing lies. I have fallen prey to this myself with regards to cabling though only to a limited degree (I am an economist after all and part with my funds very reluctantly). I have a very revealing system (more than one in fact) and I have been playing around with speaker cables recently. Fortunately, this has not cost much since my monoblock amplifiers require only 0.5 m lengths. I was amazed at how little difference in sound quality from some heavy duty self built Belden coaxial cable at one extreme, and some old DNM solid core cable I found. The DNM cable is extremely thin but did not have anywhere near the effect I expected on bass performance! Go figure!

I would be extremely concerned if the audio and hifi industry were deliberately "hobbling" performance in order to promote their premium products but it would not surprise me! Fro me the price/performance curve is key and the principle of diminishing marginal returns kicks in pretty quickly in the vast majority of instances!

Geoff

[Rothchild]

Understand the point you are making but there seem to be some inconsistencies in your argument. Surely the mikes do not need to be capable of 96khz recording, only appreciably greater than 22khz. Similar argument for amp and speakers: just greater than 22khz. Obviously, the specs you outline are desirable but not essential to improved performance. Seems to me like saying that a new supersonic airliner that could fly at mach 1.5 is not worth building because Concorde could reach >mach 2 nearly 50 years ago. Surely most technological advance is incremental rather than exponential.

Geoff

96 is 'appreciably greater' than 22, at what point above 22 is appropriate to roll off the response?

[Macca]

The mic is in the analogue domain. The sampling rate is in the digital domain. The sampling rate refers to how many samples are taken from the analogue waveform, not the frequency of the sampled signal. For best sampling performance the sampling rate has to be at least twice the highest frequency to be sampled. So if the mic was 96khz and the sampling rate was also 96khz, you wouldn't be getting a good signal at all.

Hence to fully exploit a 192 sampling frequency you need a mic capable of 96kHz.I grant that even if you don't fully exploit 192 you will still capture higher frequencies up to whatever frequency the mic is capable of, say it was 25 KHz that you won't get with 44/1 KHz but this does not get us away from the fact that the benefit to playback is tiny to non exisitent. Studios do not have 24/192 recording kit so they can issue recordings to end users at this resolution, not primarily anyway. They have them to nullify issues in processing. Even 16/48 would be overkill for home playback.

[struth]

A lot of this high rez stuff is just upsampled 16/44 to my mind, then rebadged.

[Sherwood]

96 is 'appreciably greater' than 22, at what point above 22 is appropriate to roll off the response?

The point I am making (or trying to) is that I am sure that improvements are possible, audible and measurable at some intermediate sampling frequency. Great if 96khz is achievable but why exclude the potential gains from some intermediate rate (say 48khz).

I do not claim to have golden ears but I have never found the high frequency performance of cd to be comparable to an equivalent (level) analogue system.

Geoff

[Rothchild]

A lot of this high rez stuff is just upsampled 16/44 to my mind, then rebadged.

That's easy enough to spot, just throw it through a spectrum analyser, if it's upsampled you'll see a sharp cut-off at 20(ish)kHz upsampling can't add back content that wasn't there in the first place.

[Macca]

I do not claim to have golden ears but I have never found the high frequency performance of cd to be comparable to an equivalent (level) analogue system.

Geoff

I'd agree. But the cause of that is nothing to do with frequency response. Even the best RTR will only manage the same as CD. Vinyl in a best case scenario is about 24Khz, if you are using a moving coil cart, less with MM. Of course it still has to be on the recording to hear it, mics again, and even then it has to get past the low cut filter on the cutting head. In practice all 3 mediums are within a whisker of each other in terms of upper limit of response: logically, vinyl's subjective superiority in that area must be due to something else.

[WAD62]

I'd agree. But the cause of that is nothing to do with frequency response. Even the best RTR will only manage the same as CD. Vinyl in a best case scenario is about 24Khz, if you are using a moving coil cart, less with MM. Of course it still has to be on the recording to hear it, mics again, and even then it has to get past the low cut filter on the cutting head. In practice all 3 mediums are within a whisker of each other in terms of upper limit of response: logically, vinyl's subjective superiority in that area must be due to something else.

Due to a blunder by Amazon I was sent a vinyl version of A Winged Victory For the Sullen's new album 'Iris', given I'd only been invoiced for the CD (half the price), and was keen to hear it I opened it and had a listen. I also re-ordered another CD copy...

Here's the caviat, my assumption is that as it was only released last month, and that the band are heavily into audio quality (particularly vinyl), and that both the CD and record are from the same master...

The record sounded pretty good on my old TT setup, (Linn Axis/basik+/Denon DL-110/Rotel RQ-970BX/Audiolab 8000Q/8000Ms...etc. but in comparison to the ripped CD there's quite a gap, particularly in the fine detail, imaging, and noise floor.

So much so I've ordered a new phono pre-amp, perhaps a new TT eventually...my analogue side has been heavily overtaken by my digital kit in terms of SQ