[MonkeysAteMe]

I've read that music samples at 44.1khz so is having a higher sample rate on a sound card benificial or detrimental. Wouldn't having a card that samples at 48 be better than a card that samples at 196 because there is less of a jump or am I missing something?

 

[lini]

Well, if you're talking about standard audio cds, yup the sample rate is 44.1 kHz. But no, you wouldn't better play that back with 48 kHz than 96 or 192 kHz, 'cause there will be bigger approximation errors in the conversion (= resampling).

Greetings from Hannover!

Manfred / lini

 

[Sycraft]

Depends on a lot of things. So yes, CDs are 44.1kHz. DVDs (video) are 48kHz. DVD-A can be 96kHz or more.

Now as to the same rate of the sound card. You'll find that there's actually not a lot of choice in terms of getting one that is purely 44.1kHz. Most are either variable or resampling to 48kHz or higher. The variable ones will change their clock to whatever rate you want. So it doesn't matter, if you feed it 44.1kHz it outputs at that. The resampling ones run at a fixed frequency and resample all audio to it. This process can introduce audible distortion, but doesn't, if done right.

 

[pedxing]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sycraft Depends on a lot of things. So yes, CDs are 44.1kHz. DVDs (video) are 48kHz. DVD-A can be 96kHz or more. Now as to the same rate of the sound card. You'll find that there's actually not a lot of choice in terms of getting one that is purely 44.1kHz. Most are either variable or resampling to 48kHz or higher. The variable ones will change their clock to whatever rate you want. So it doesn't matter, if you feed it 44.1kHz it outputs at that. The resampling ones run at a fixed frequency and resample all audio to it. This process can introduce audible distortion, but doesn't, if done right.

I was intrigued by your last sentence. Maybe I just misunderstood you, but in the case of upsampling 44.1 kHz to the common 48 kHz output stream, how can you upsample without any distortion?

 

[Sycraft]

I think you need a 140+ pole filter to do it, but it can be done, or at least can be done to a point such that there is no audible distortion. In practise there are resamplers out there, hardware and software, that add essentially no distortion. The X-Fi is a good example. It DOES add a tiny bit, but nothing you'd ever hear, way under the actual noise floor of the DACs. For all practical purposes I call it "no distortion" resampling as that's how it sounds.

In the case of software I believe SSRC does quite a good job.