[linux-audio-user] Re: 192kHz

[Michael T D Nelson]

Carlo Capocasa wrote:
>>I've always thought that a soundcard whose clock is able to work at
>>192KHz will be more precise than a soundcard whose clock is sticked to
>>48KHz, so there's a reason to buy a 192KHz soundcard... and work at
>>48KHz. :)
> 
> 
> Ah, kind of like buying a big fat stereo even though you live in an
> apartment building :) so you can get the precision listening at 10% volume.
> 
> 
>>I don't see any reason to work at 192KHz. Apart from huge files,
>>Nyquist is on my side.
> 
> 
> Err, NyQuil? Oh Nyquist ;) Took a little google to get that one about
>  Hm, I audiophiles probably
> don't qualify as 'practical purposes' but I do here a whole lot of
> bickering by them about the dynamics of CDs.

The "bickering about the dynamics of CDs" could be partly due to the 
production used in lots of CDs - there is often a tendency to 
overcompress popular music (in particular) to ridiculous levels, 
reducing the dynamic range considerably.

Just rip an entire album by a band like POD (or many others) and have a 
look at the wave files. Chances are that the wave peaks will be almost 
constant throughout.

It gets very tiring on the ears to listen to some things for this reason.

> I wonder if it is possile
> for a well-trained sense of hearing to 'sense' frequencies beyond human
> nyquist and get a psychoacoustic sensation from them anyway.

Well, it seems likely to me that waves outside the range of audible 
frequencies could interfere with each other (beating effects, etc), such 
that they alter the audible sound.

It probably doesn't make a lot of difference though to the average 
listener. For example, my girlfriend is more than happy to listen to 
tunes on a car radio that sounds like a distorted old phone headset speaker.

Regards
Michael