Differences between speech and audio

[diegosened]

Hello i have a question! at the same level of quality what is the difference between speech and audio in term of required sampling rates? i tried to find a proof, but for my ear all are the same.. could you help me?

[steve]

what is the difference between speech and audio in term of required sampling rates?

"Speech" IS "audio".
I presume that you mean the difference between speech and music?

People are generally more fussy about sound quality for music than they are for speech - People will be quite happy with using a telephone for talking to each other (as long as they can hear the words), but for listening to music they will usually demand much higher sound quality.

The "required" sampling rate and how good/bad it sound depends on the sound quality of the original material (if you record from a telephone it will sound low quality whatever sample rate you use).

The sound quality also depends on what you play it back on - if you play a brilliant music recording from a telephone it will sound pretty rubbish compared with playing it on a high quality sound system.

A voice recording made with a sample rate of 8000 Hz should still be ineligible assuming that everything else is reasonable quality, but will sound pretty poor for music played on a half decent sound system. For CD quality music you need to use at least 44100 Hz.