kozikowski wrote: If you do the strict arithmetic, 44100 is only surgically accurate to 17,000 audio, not the generally accepted top end of 20,000. That's one reason people in higher end sound production drop it as a hot rock in favor of higher sample rates such as 96000.
I wish you would stop writing that koz - it's NOT TRUE.
With modern anti-aliasing filters, 44100 Hz sample rate PCM audio is "surgically accurate" to about 20,000 Hz.
Way back when CDs were first invented, anti-aliasing filters were not so good, so back then your statement was more realistic, but "modern" digital filters that are very close to "ideal filters" have been used for well over a decade.
lmstearn wrote:Interesting. Is there more info on that somewhere? What's 96000 accurate to?
"Theoretically", digital audio (PCM) is capable of accurately reproducing frequencies up to half the sample rate. So for 44100 Hz sample rate, the theoretical frequency limit is 22050 Hz. This theoretical limit is called the "Nyquist frequency" (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist_frequency).
In practice the limit is a little lower because when digitizing an analog signal it is essential that frequencies above the Nyquist frequency are removed before the signal is sampled. The practical limit therefore depends on how good the filters are that remove frequencies above the Nyquist frequency. Modern digital filters are
very good and run up to about 95% of the Nyquist frequency, so that gives you a
practical upper limit close to 21 kHz for a sample rate of 44100 Hz.
For 96000 Hz sample rate, the practical upper frequency limit 'could' be up to about 45,000 Hz. However there are disadvantages to retaining ultra-high frequencies in audio recordings. For example, one of the disadvantages is that loudspeaker drivers either fail completely of are very inaccurate at such high frequencies, and this can cause "Intermodulation distortion" (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermodulation), so including frequencies that are beyond the audible can
reduce the sound quality within the audible range. For this reason the frequency response of audio equipment may be deliberately limited to a range much lower than is technically possible. Unless the manufacturer is wanting the hype of big numbers, it is likely that frequency range will be limited substantially lower 45khz and could be little over 20 kHz (which is still sufficient for "audio").
This forum is for Audacity 2.x.x on Windows.
