What's the point of higher sampling rates in audio?
Reply #30 – 2011-10-18 22:42:13
It just doesn´t make sense to use 16/44.1 or lossy compression nowadays and even less sense to promote it as the only format worthwile. ... You guys are still doing comparisons of lossy formats at 96 kBit/s! Why? The world won´t need them for much longer. Furthermore, you make fun of people who don´t share your opinion. I completely agree with you on the fun-making part. Such people don't contribute anything but rather deteriorate a forum's reputation. But I strongly disagree with you on the rest. Digital archiving of historical recordings is a completely separate issue, where data rate doesn't matter. So yes, if the analog tape creates distortion up to 48 kHz, digitize at 96 kHz, why not? But why at 24 or 32 bits? You won't capture any more information than with 16 (or 14) bits per sample. And, luckily, at HA many know a thing or two about information theory which most of the world's population doesn't. Sorry to disappoint you, but already nowadays you hear more compressed than lossless audio in your daily life. Digital TV, radio, phone, basically every animation or stream on the Internet use it. Give me an application other than physical media (CD, Blu-Ray, etc.) and private FLAC/ALAC collections where lossless audio is being distributed/used by more than a tiny minority. That's why we test things like 96 kbps: to see how low you can go with lossy compression and still achieve excellent (but of course not transparent) quality, and to make other people aware of our findings. It's a hard truth, but I think we are reaching a point where lossless audio is becoming unimportant. The industry is e.g. pushing digital radio to channel bit-rates far below 100 kbps stereo! Which is ridiculous if you ask me, but that's how it is. So there are much more important things to worry about than whether to use 48 kHz or higher sampling rates.Edit : Thought about it some more... Of course nowadays we would also want to archive e.g. some contemporary amateur cell-phone videos with "historical value". Isn't it more important to get the crappy cell-phone video and sound right in the next phone generation than to be able to preserve it in 24/96? My 0.02 Euro. Chris