[LAU] Pro Audio? OT rant.

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Sat, 2012-12-22 at 20:53 -0500, Thomas Vecchione wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 1:00 PM, Ralf Mardorf
> <ralf.mardorf at alice-dsl.net> wrote:
>         >         ADAT can do 48KHz, 96KHz and 192KHz. Nobody will use
>         44.1KHz
>         >         for
>         >         pro-audio, so that wouldn't cause an issue.
>         >
>         > the usual ralph misinformation. does it ever stop?
>         >
>         > ADAT supports 44.1kHz and 48kHz as-is. With the S-Mux
>         "standard", it
>         > can route 88.2kHz and 96kHz signals, but each channel is
>         split across
>         > two ADAT channels, causing a 50% reduction in the number of
>         available
>         > channels.
>         
>         
>         Can you give an example for misinformation by me?
> 
> 
> Along with Paul pointing out that ADAT CAN do 44.1, saying that 44.1
> recording will never be used for Pro-Audio is also misinformation.  If
> you are going to CD only, it removes the need to do a sample rate
> conversion, which obviously means less noise, and while there may
> certainly be some differences in audio quality, some people believe
> the difference from said conversion is greater than the difference in
> audio quality form 44.1 vs 96, etc.

Now you spread misinformation ;). Is there any scientific source for
that claim?

My impression is (might be scientifically right or wrong, it's my
experience) that

- < 48 KHz sound can be ok for some sources, but it
  also can become very bad
- > 48 KHz you don't hear an improvement, IOW 48 KHz is
  all that's needed
- There is some gear that does sound better at > 48 KHz,
  but if you compare that gear with other gear at 48 KHz
  it doesn't sound better

I don't have experiences with conversion from 48 KHz to 44.1 KHz, when I
did it (doing something a few times doesn't lead to experience), the
sound becomes less good, that's the nature of 44.1 KHz. I don't know any
scientific reason that a conversion should cause issues, but producing
at 44.1 KHz does cause issues, since the sound is less good, mixing is
harder to do.

I was asked how the sound quality is, when I use 192 KHz with the RME
card, but I can't answer this question, because I don't record at 192
Khz.

I guess the bit depth is important, especially for production, perhaps
less important for listening to the finished recoding.

YMMV!

Regards,
Ralf