Any point to using 192Khz for recording?

Hello,

Search for "intermod.ppt" in the following page :
http://world.std.com/~griesngr/

(well, today a good audio interface will usually be 192 kHz capable, but you can still stick to 44.1 kHz ... moreover very high resolutions are CPU and reliability consuming)

I wouldn't get a new box just for 192Khz playback but for a thousand
other reasons :-) For instance high quality and low latency playback
and recording which you would't get with the crappy internal sound card.

As far as CD quality is concerned, I would never work with 16 bit
sounds while processing or mixing, only when you do the final mix
down of your track. The reason being that you don't have as much
dynamic room with 16bit mixing as you do with 24.

Depending on what you do with your sounds, 192Khz could be a good
idea or not for mixing and processing. I can hear the difference
between 44.1 khz sounds that have been transposed down by and octave
and 96 khz sounds that have also been transposed down by octave
(given that they where also recorded with the same resolutions 44.1
and 96 respectively). With 44.1 you can hear a sudden cut off point
in the spectrum at around 11000 hrz. So if you are doing lots and
lots of processing (and your software can manage higher resolution)
then the higher the better particularly with transposition.

Best
Peiman

On 30 Oct 2007, at 20:27, Wade wrote:

> It doesn't seem like audio is going to be upgrading to 192Khz (or
> higher ie: Super Audio CD/DVD Audio) anytime soon. Is it worth getting
> a box that can record to this high of quality when audio is most
> popular at lower than CD quality?

IMO: 192 kHz SR is sales hype. 1. You can't hear it anyway 2. it is
really hard to do properly with clock/jitter/analog circuitry. well
designed 96 kHz circuitry is plenty for the future. 44.1 kHz is fine
for now.

My very personal 2c.

Best,

Zip

Op 30-okt-2007, om 21:27 heeft Wade het volgende geschreven:

> It doesn't seem like audio is going to be upgrading to 192Khz (or
> higher ie: Super Audio CD/DVD Audio) anytime soon. Is it worth getting
> a box that can record to this high of quality when audio is most
> popular at lower than CD quality?

Though you're probably already aware of it, bit-rate is definitely
more important than sample rate when choosing a recording device. 24-
bit gives you a lot of freedom to record things at softer volumes and
not worry quite as much about being too soft (or clipping).

Peter McCulloch

On Oct 30, 2007, at 5:14 PM, Zip Boterbloem wrote:

> IMO: 192 kHz SR is sales hype. 1. You can't hear it anyway 2. it is
> really hard to do properly with clock/jitter/analog circuitry. well
> designed 96 kHz circuitry is plenty for the future. 44.1 kHz is
> fine for now.
>
> My very personal 2c.
>
> Best,
>
> Zip
>
> Op 30-okt-2007, om 21:27 heeft Wade het volgende geschreven:
>
>> It doesn't seem like audio is going to be upgrading to 192Khz (or
>> higher ie: Super Audio CD/DVD Audio) anytime soon. Is it worth
>> getting
>> a box that can record to this high of quality when audio is most
>> popular at lower than CD quality?
>

Interestingly I bought a fireface 800 awhile back and experimented recording a four piece vocal ensemble. I tried recording using several different mic techniques at 44.1KHz,48kHz, 88.2KHz, 96KHz and 192KHz. When it came to finally mastering the material onto a CD I found that the best sound came out at 88.2KHz. I found the material I recorded at 192KHz to sound extremely harsh and abrasive.

Intuitivly I was thinking the old argument that when recording at higher sample rates your quantization noise gets spread over a larger spectrum.. thus when mastering down to CD quality audio you could low pass filter the audible spectrum and get rid of some of this quantization noise that was within the inaudible spectrum. This defineatly wasn't the case with 192KHz.... defineatly sounded like it was the case with 88.2.

blah blah blah... so NO

Yes! 24-bit is much better sounding & easier to work with. I stopped
recording in 16-bit as soon as I got hold of a 20(24 was not there
yet at the time)-bit hard- and software.

Op 31-okt-2007, om 0:10 heeft Peter McCulloch het volgende geschreven:

> Though you're probably already aware of it, bit-rate is definitely
> more important than sample rate when choosing a recording device.
> 24-bit gives you a lot of freedom to record things at softer
> volumes and not worry quite as much about being too soft (or
> clipping).
>
> Peter McCulloch
>
>
>
> On Oct 30, 2007, at 5:14 PM, Zip Boterbloem wrote:
>
>> IMO: 192 kHz SR is sales hype. 1. You can't hear it anyway 2. it
>> is really hard to do properly with clock/jitter/analog circuitry.
>> well designed 96 kHz circuitry is plenty for the future. 44.1 kHz
>> is fine for now.
>>
>> My very personal 2c.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Zip
>>
>> Op 30-okt-2007, om 21:27 heeft Wade het volgende geschreven:
>>
>>> It doesn't seem like audio is going to be upgrading to 192Khz (or
>>> higher ie: Super Audio CD/DVD Audio) anytime soon. Is it worth
>>> getting
>>> a box that can record to this high of quality when audio is most
>>> popular at lower than CD quality?
>>
>

Dan Lavry has an interesting take on 192khz converter technology which you can read here:

http://www.lavryengineering.com/documents/Sampling_Theory.pdf

In my own investigations of AD/DA technology I've been disappointed by nearly all sigma-delta converter designs and have set to working on an R2R non-oversampling ADC/DAC with 2 more bits of true measurement than the eccentric Dr. Altmann's creation ADC (who does a nice job of exploring AD/DA tech in layman's terms):

http://www.mother-of-tone.com/timeband.htm
http://www.mother-of-tone.com/cd.htm
http://www.mother-of-tone.com/conversion.htm

Lavry strongest argument against 192khz (IMO) is nearly all off the shelf converter designs halve the decimation rate as the sample rate doubles. [I think I'm stating this correctly, someone please correct me if I've forgotten the argument/logic]. One could conclude that there isn't any real gain to 176khz or 192khz unless it's done with a NOS true measurement ADC *OR* an approach like the Korg MR-1 is taken and the decimation and filtering can be performed in fake-time by software where latency is not an issue allowing many bits and excellent filter responses to be generated (thus not smearing transients and giving better reproduction).

Most of what I discuss above is prohibitive to the musician (Designing your own, Purchasing Altmanns @ 2000 euro's or the even more expensive true R2R 24bit master ADC by Lavry. Prism and Mytek are top designs but extremely expensive for a sigma-delta and out of the reach of most... And of course the Korg MR-1 isn't an interface and if it where it would have the exact same problems as any other sigma-delta system when you tried to use it with a PCM based software platform (Which is nearly every DAW, sans DSD editing platforms).

So, what's the consumer to do? After much research I've settled on:

A.) build my own NOS AD/DA (in process), when finished run at 96khz or 192khz (case/x/case)

B.) Use a Korg MR-1 as a master recorder for analog sessions (192khz derived from DSD using fake-time would appear to get around the halved decimation rate argument), me, I'm usually happy with 96khz.

C.) Use an echo Audiofire 12 for multi-tracking sessions with outboard gear/musicians
(the audiofire 8 and 12 both use the same crystal AD/DA as the Apogee Ensemble, which isn't that great in itself, BUT, for only 550$, it's a great value and is good enough for most music made today. +one can upgrade the Audiofire's analog path to get a decent sounding box, equal to or better than the Ensemble.

D.) Continue to use tape on specific projects although it's getting very expensive these days and sourcing tape in Tokyo is a nightmare.

HTH,
-anthony

And then I found this:

http://www.smr-home-theatre.org/surround2002/technology/page_07.shtml

and

http://www.smr-home-theatre.org/surround2002/technology/page_08.shtml

Many golden ears like the MR-1 but the plots on this page are not exactly exciting. I'd like to see a DSD conversion down to 96khz compared, perhaps in my next life when i have time for such things.

when we tell a story, it's great to listen to, but it's not like actually experiencing said story. good story tellers don't have
many problems with the lossiness of language. it follows recording shouldn't be so dependent on things sounding professional rather just "sounding intentional".

-anthony

On Oct 30, 2007, at 10:03 PM, Tyler Nitsch wrote:

>
> Interestingly I bought a fireface 800 awhile back and experimented
> recording a four piece vocal ensemble. I tried recording using
> several different mic techniques at 44.1KHz,48kHz, 88.2KHz, 96KHz
> and 192KHz. When it came to finally mastering the material onto a
> CD I found that the best sound came out at 88.2KHz. I found the
> material I recorded at 192KHz to sound extremely harsh and abrasive.
Were the original recordings at 192 harsh, or was the result after
downsampling from 192 to 44.1 harsh? If the latter, then you may very
well not be testing 192 vs. other rates so much as testing the
quality of the downsampling algorithm/implementation of the software
you used.

----
Steven M. Miller
Professor, Contemporary Music Program
College of Santa Fe

Home
SFIFEM
Atrium Sound Space
OVOS
CMP