Persistent Audio Myths

Well, I'd have to argue the one about sample rate levels, but maybe not in the way you'd expect. I have spent countless hours in my college years A/Bing gear to find out what was really going on. There are math reasons, which I won't try to spell out here, why 44.1k isn't optimal, but even 88k or above is overkill. The understanding that there is no usable audio information in frequencies above 20kHz is, at this point, empirically legitimate. But, this doesn't account for some of the noise and filter error issues that can and do occur at this level (and even 48k, which is still considered the industry standard in many areas). That said, there can be substantial "distortion" error at the faster speeds due to the inability of our current computing technologies to assimilate data at rates of 192k, for instance.

Dan Lavry, whose company makes some of the best A/D converters on the planet, has written a number of interesting papers on this subject and others. In fact, he argues that 60k is the approximate sweet spot, for various reasons. If you're interested, here's the website address. Look under the "support" window.

lavryengineering.com/index_html.html

For the record, I have found that a number of converters that I have used in the past sounded better at higher sampling rates. This was eventually discovered to have very little to do with the rate itself, and more to do with the processing ability of the gear and quality of the converters. My 2 cents.

I would agree that some digital converters sound better at higher sample rates but, it's usually prosumer, bottom market stuff or just really old (outdated technology). Geez, I bought my first digital effects unit in 1990 I think. Wow. (before the internet -- I just googled it and there is no trace of the thing) LOL

And, yes, since we're dealing with bandwidth limiting I realize there are issues associated with reconstruction filters, rippling, reflections back into the audible range, etc., but when you think about how music is being played back (mp3, on YouTube, etc.,) it's really a non-issue (at least to me). Even above average conversion at 44.1 is going to yield better than acceptable results and does not really justify, to me, the additional storage and CPU cycles.

Dan Lavry, whose company makes some of the best A/D converters on the planet, has written a number of interesting papers on this subject and others. In fact, he argues that 60k is the approximate sweet spot, for various reasons.

Lavry also has expensive convertors he needs to sell ;D

No, I agree with what you're saying and, in fact, some years back I used to hang out at a forum where Dan held forth on these topics (not that I absorbed that much) but I just can't see or hear any practical benefits of higher sample rates.

We're headed toward a download/mobile world and ultra pristine audio is virtually pointless. My favorite bands sound like shit anyway ;D

I was listening to an album by The National earlier and the audio quality is simply atrocious -- and I love the music.

What I want to get across is: don't chase the higher numbers because you're wasting money. 44.1 is more than adequate for what we all want to do.