Topic: Any drawbacks to recording in 24/96

[DSatz]

yates, just talking about the objective quality of A/D conversion, I don't think that your statement ("there are not drawbacks to recording in 24/96") is correct when it's made in an absolute, all-encompassing way.

High sampling rates offer technical disadvantages as well as advantages. Higher sampling frequencies correspond to shorter sampling intervals. With the simplest types of linear converters (old-fashioned nowadays, but more recent types of converter are in some respects still based on them), less time is available at higher sampling rates for the converter to settle on its best approximation of the value for each desired output sample. The result is generally an increase in the quantization error. With smart design this error will manifest itself mostly as random noise, i.e. the error, considered as a signal, isn't notably correlated with the input signal. "Noise shaping" techniques can concentrate this error signal (which always exists to some degree) into a high-frequency range that playback systems don't reproduce well and that humans can't directly hear, but too much or the wrong kind of that is definitely not a good thing.

As a result this all, once again, really depends on how the particular converters are implemented. Sampling rate is not a magic specification that automatically indicates conversion quality. It just isn't supportable to claim that all converters having a 96 kHz sampling rate perform in every respect as well or better at 96 kHz than they do, say, at 48 or 64 kHz or even at 44.1. And whatever you find to be true of a given converter type in this respect may not be equally true of another converter type. So I think you might want to watch out for the generalizations.

--best regards

[Teen Age Riot]

So how would one go about testing the converter quality of a given deck and determining the sampling rate at which it performs best?

[yates7592]

It just isn't supportable to claim that all converters having a 96 kHz sampling rate perform in every respect as well or better at 96 kHz than they do, say, at 48 or 64 kHz or even at 44.1. And whatever you find to be true of a given converter type in this respect may not be equally true of another converter type. So I think you might want to watch out for the generalizations.

--best regards

I don't believe I claimed anything of the sort, but I would also be interested to hear your views on Teen Age Riot's question above ^

[Brian Skalinder]

yates, just talking about the objective quality of A/D conversion, I don't think that your statement ("there are not drawbacks to recording in 24/96") is correct when it's made in an absolute, all-encompassing way.  < snip >  So I think you might want to watch out for the generalizations.

I don't believe I claimed anything of the sort

Here:

no, there are not drawbacks to recording in 24/96, only (possible/probable) benefits.

Of course, there are drawbacks.  Some potential, as DSatz mentions, and dependent on individual ADC design & implementation (e.g. a given recorder's ADC may perform better at 24/48 than 24/96), and some practical and/or personal (file size, recorder storage, archival storage, processing time, etc.).

Glad to hear you don't find any of these drawbacks an issue for you, but they are drawbacks for some people.

[hi and lo]

I read yates comment to read as "there are no scientific drawbacks," but completely agree that practical drawbacks are abundant. I'm sure scientific drawbacks are possible and exist, but unlike the many documented drawbacks of recording at the 192kHz sampling rate, I've rarely, if ever, heard people complain about most modern 96kHz implementations.

[yates7592]

If some of the 96kHz recorders and their built in A/D converters are crap, how do we tell the good ones from the bad?

[F.O.Bean]

I record in 24/48 because the file sizes and recording PA systems you cant hear a diff between 24/48 and 24/96. Now if I was doing some stage-lip/onstage jazz or acoustic stuff, I might consider 24/96, but for PA's, I roll at 24/48

[yates7592]

I'm sure scientific drawbacks are possible and exist, but unlike the many documented drawbacks of recording at the 192kHz sampling rate, I've rarely, if ever, heard people complain about most modern 96kHz implementations.

Me too, but I'm no expert.....however, Jon seems to know what he is talking about:

Eventually you reach some point where you start to lose precision, and then some point where that loss of precision becomes audible.  That probably isn't at 96, maybe 192 but I would guess usually not, maybe in some implementations.  When you go beyond that I would guess you do start to audibly lose precision in the audible band in exchange for very high frequency information that isn't useful at all. 

So, both these contributors seem to be of the opinion that recording degeneration is unlikely at 96kHz. From limited personal experience, I would tend to agree with them. I use an R-09HR and R-26 (medium price/quality recorders I would say) and have not heard artefacts at 96kHz. But I have an open mind on this and I would be interested to hear from others who believe it can happen, to tell me which recorders are "good" and "bad" at 96kHz A/D conversion in that respect?

[aaronji]

From what I can piece together, from the posts here and a variety of other sources, the potential audio advantages/disadvantages of 48 vs. 96 kHz sampling are mostly in the realm of theory or are essentially miniscule differences around the edges [EDIT: assuming a "decent" ADC].  Particularly for concert recording, I am not sure if you'll ever hear a real, audible difference between the two.  If that is true, then it comes down to the more practical considerations people have mentioned and, in the end, personal preference...For what it's worth, the AES recommends 48 kHz for most applications. 

With respect to an earlier question about hearing above 24 kHz, I have a more solid opinion on that.  I reviewed the literature on the range of human hearing and found that a large body of research, stretching back for decades, supports 20 kHz as the upper limit, and that's in young, healthy individuals (the upper limit decreases, often substantially, with age).  There are a few papers that suggest that some people can hear pure tones above 20 Khz, up to a maximum of 24 kHz.  Those papers described studies that were conducted with very small samples under ideal laboratory conditions (and with high SPL signals), so their conclusions may not be entirely reliable and are decidedly not relevant for "real world" conditions.  So a more liberal interpretation of the data would peg the upper bound at 24 kHz, while a more conservative interpretation would favor 20 kHz...

[runonce]

Everybody needs to turn on the Spectrum view in FooBar - and give a listen (and watch) to what is happening in the higher frequencies(compared to low and mid)...not much activity beyond 10k and really almost nothing above 14...(heh - at least with my gear..YMMV)

Now - thats not to say "it doesnt matter" - I think quite the opposite - it makes accurate high frequency reproduction even more important...since all that information is so low in level.

Treble seems to be the textural dressing that "finishes" sounds...its like the shellac of music...

[aaronji]

Everybody needs to turn on the Spectrum view in FooBar - and give a listen (and watch) to what is happening in the higher frequencies(compared to low and mid)...not much activity beyond 10k and really almost nothing above 14...(heh - at least with my gear..YMMV)

Now - thats not to say "it doesnt matter" - I think quite the opposite - it makes accurate high frequency reproduction even more important...since all that information is so low in level.

Treble seems to be the textural dressing that "finishes" sounds...its like the shellac of music...

The audible high frequencies will be well reproduced even at 44.1 kHz (48 kHz if you stretch the definition of "audible" a little)...

[StarkRavingCalm]

I just switched to 24/48 the other day after reading this thread and the other one (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=157049.0)
The file split during a song and I would like an application capable of merging the two files without saving it as 16/44.1

Is there a free solution out there? In the past I always used WavMerge.


Thanks in advance

[bryonsos]

I just switched to 24/48 the other day after reading this thread and the other one (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=157049.0)
The file split during a song and I would like an application capable of merging the two files without saving it as 16/44.1

Is there a free solution out there? In the past I always used WavMerge.


Thanks in advance

I would think most programs would do this. I use Audacity for everything including file splits.

[StarkRavingCalm]

I couldn't seem to get Audacity to merger them without silence.
Looks like foobar2000 is the winner. Relatively simple to join and kept the original 24/48 format.
I do wish WavMerge was still being updated and could support the newer formats. It was so simple, open file1, open file 2, join, done.

[bryonsos]

I couldn't seem to get Audacity to merger them without silence.
Looks like foobar2000 is the winner. Relatively simple to join and kept the original 24/48 format.
I do wish WavMerge was still being updated and could support the newer formats. It was so simple, open file1, open file 2, join, done.

Open both files as separate projects, go to the second one and highlight both channels. Then, File > Find Zero Crossings, followed by File > Copy. Go to the first file and put the cursor to the right of the end of the file, then paste and save.