Re: [LAU] Pro Audio? OT rant.

On Sun, Dec 23, 2012 at 12:39:17PM -0500, Thomas Vecchione wrote:
> And for the record, the basic reasoning for what I said is simple, and has
> existed for quite some time, that 44.1kHz is capable of containing more
> than the entire human hearing range of an undamaged ear (Reproducing all
> frequencies up to just above 22k).

Yeah, but what about harmonics? For truly PRO work, analog should be
used. CD's came out as the poor mans quality stereo, it was a compromise
for high quality vinyl. Just as McDonalds is a poor compromise for a
quality restaurant. But with the proliferation of advertising, huge
product selection, the rising cost of the real quality goods; digital
and McDonalds soon became the norm.

I believe it was Shannon's law which basically stated that the sampling
frequency should be twice as high as the highest frequency (or
bandwidth, if the lowest is zero). This was used in telecomunications
where a 4kHz (actually 3.4kHz but usually rounded off to 4kHz) bandwidth was
considered to be ample to convey human speech at a quality which was
considered acceptable. Therefore, an 8kHz sample rate was used.

I believe the same reasoning was used when they started fabricating CDs.

In all fairness, if the source of the music is digital, then digital
mastering throughout the whole process is acceptable (the DDD) on the
cover of the CD usually (used to?) indicates this. Others are AAD and
ADD, where the A stands for analog.

So, consider a musician playing a Stradivarius violin. You'd want to be
able to reproduce all the tonal richness, and harmonics during the
recording phase. Some people say the ear can't hear above a certain
frequency anyway, so it doesn't matter whereas there are others who can
pick the difference between a Stradivarius violin and an "ordinary"
violin.

I also understand that vinyl is now increasingly (very slowly though)
becoming the preferred medium for listening to music.

Remember: If you sample at an infinite frequency you have analog, and
isn't the idea of quality digital to have a high sample rate.

-- 
"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people
who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the 
oppressing." --- Malcolm X
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