[LAU] Record at 44.1 or at 48 kHz?

[Victor Roetman]

I know this is a subjective topic, but I've done a bit of reading on the
web and searching in the archives, and it's not easy to get anything
concrete.  I understand that recording at high sampling frequencies such
as 96kHz may be beneficial, especially with regard to digital filtering
artifacts, but for someone like me it's definitely overkill.  I also
understand that recording with 24 bit samples has definite merit and
should probably be done irrespective of the sample rate.

The question I have is whether I should be recording 24 bit audio at
44.1 kHz or at 48 kHz if the end result will be Compact Disk audio.  It
seems that some pro-audio equipment tends to prefer 48 kHz, and many
people do their recording at 48 kHz.  The heart of the question is this:
Will the slight slight increase in quality of recording and mixing at 48
kHz outweigh the slight reduction in quality from re-sampling 48 kHz to
44.1 kHz?

How about if the project was also using loops recorded at 44.1 kHz?  If
the Ardour project is at 48 kHz, the loops would need to be up-sampled,
and then the whole thing down-sampled again to 44.1 on export.  Would
that up-down sampling offset any benefit of using 48 kHz in the first place?

vic