why 96K??

[shroud]

I know this is a WAYYYYY overdone topic in many music recording forums, but I had to get more input....what is everybody's take here?? I really feel 48K sounds good and is fine for most people...

How about related to specific music styles??

[Nika]

Shroud,

Great question. Which online discussions about it are you referring to?

Thanx!
Nika.

[recordingpro]

This is a HUGE topic and one that people seem to be pretty passionate about, either one way or the other. I find myself somewhere in between, and there are definately situations in which I would consider using 96k for a project, even though the downside is currently fairly large for someone with my budget..... for example, 24/96K audio takes approximately 17.2 mb PER TRACK, PER MINUTE. Imagine doing an entire album of 24 track material....with edits, virtual tracks, etc, you could easily be looking at 50-150 gigabytes of storage space. However, as the DVD-Audio standard begins to catch on (and it will) the argument for audiophile recordings will grow. ... So many other things come into play.....microphones that can actually record at the higher frequencies affected by 96k, and playback systems that can accurately monitor them. With all that said, I can also say that on a good quality system, using good converters, good filters, etc, 48khz audio can accurately reproduce music, and I'm willing to bet that a majority of people pulled randomly off the street would quite possibly not detect any (or very little) differance between the two. ( I know because i've participated in several well organized blind-listening tests)

Does it make a differance ? YES! I have heard the differance , especially on reverb tails, cymbals, hi-hats, etc. Is it worth it for me personally to invest at this point ? NO... Maybe in 6 months? we'll see...

NIKA is actually quite the expert on this, and has done many hours of research and spoken with some of the bright minds of the industry regarding this....I think that his arguments are very interesting and while he may not be the for-most authority on the subject, he is very well studied in this discussion, and brings some very good points to argument., I m looking forward to reading his further reply on this.

[shroud]

There has been talk on eqmag.com forums, harmonycentral & a few others that fail to come to mind right now...

[Nika]

Ahh, perhaps you've already seen my comments on one of the other sites?

In short, I agree with your assessment.

I'd be happy to contribute more if someone desires. But let me know if you already know what I think.


Thanx!
Nika.

[shroud]

Nika,

I may have seen some of those comments...how 'bout posting the URL to those comments here for any other folks??

:)

[Nika]

Shroud,

I'm afraid that wouldn't be very easy. There are (as you may know) 25 pages worth of content that would require 25 URL's.

But if you've already seen what I have to say on those sites, then I'll have to assume you're here to get NEW opinions, and not just rehashes of the old?

I'll tell you what, try out this URL and let me know what you think.

http://www.sweetwater.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2

Thanx!
Nika.

[SteveFortner]

Some people here probably know this already, but one of the definitive debates on this topic has occurred on the EQ Mag forums at www.musicplayer.com (http://www.musicplayer.com) I would have inserted a more complete link, but Musicplayer is really slow at this moment. It is on the George Massenburg forum, and the thread is called "George, Watch This!" I think Nika originated it, actually.

[Nika]

http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/000822.html

Bookmarked :)

[Ted]

Along with Recordingpro, I'd be willing to bet that a majority of people pulled at random off the street would not be able to hear the difference between 48K and 96K. I'll even take it one step further and say that a majority of people pulled out of recording studios would not be able to tell the difference. I'm not saying that there is no perceptible difference (because I believe that there is), I'm just saying that most people won't hear it (based on what many well-respected engineers have said as well as listening tests I've been involved with myself).

-Ted

[Nika]

Ted,

Are you talking specifically about 48k vs. 96k technology? Or are you talking about being able to identify the difference in a specific box? There are some boxes that I believe the difference may be fairly obvious in. The problem is that the better designed the box, the less obvious the difference - so that by the time you get to the best converters, the differences will be totally incomprehendable if not (about to get pummeled) slightly more transparent on the side of the 48k. conversion.

So I think that people polled off the street could tell a difference - in the really bad converters. Fortunately I don't use very bad converters.

Nika.

[Ted]

Yes, I'm talking about higher-quality converters, as I'm sure are the high-profile engineers (such as the oft-cited Roger Nichols on the Steely Dan recordings) who are vocal about this as well.

-Ted

[sreder]

A big thing here is considering the final destination of what you are recording. If your end product is a CD, then stick to a sampling rate that is a multiple of 44.1 KHz (44.1 or 88.2 KHz) and use the bit depth of your choice. For the most part, when my end product will be a CD, I record in 44.1 KHz/24-bit. Nuendo includes Apogee's UV22 dithering alogorithm, so I use it to dither down to 16 bits. I stick to this rule because I have found that resampling from 48 KHz or 96 KHz to 44.1 KHz will noticeably degrade audio quality. If your end product is a DVD, then 48 KHz/24-bit or 96 KHz/24-bit will be best as these rates/bit depths are supported in that medium.