In article ,
Clive Backham wrote:
What's left for debate is whether the sampling frequency used for CD
is already at or beyond the limits of human hearing

It is - when digital was in its infancy I and many of my colleagues had an
opportunity to play with different sampling rates on a wide variety of
material. And the point where any difference is detectable is below that
of CD - *that's* why it was chosen - although the exact rate was down to
TV video parameters so video recorders could be used.

- if it is, then the higher sampling rate used in SACD is redundant.

For the end user, absolutely.

--
*When it rains, why don't sheep shrink? *

Dave Plowman London SW 12
RIP Acorn

In article ,
Clive Backham wrote:
What's left for debate is whether the sampling frequency used for CD
is already at or beyond the limits of human hearing

It is - when digital was in its infancy I and many of my colleagues had
an
opportunity to play with different sampling rates on a wide variety of
material. And the point where any difference is detectable is below that
of CD - *that's* why it was chosen - although the exact rate was down to
TV video parameters so video recorders could be used.


Is it possible that, back then, the DACs were only effective up to a
certain rate, at a lower rate than for the ear? If, say the DACS showed no
improvement in sound past 44kHz, your experiment would always show cd to bo
optimal. Just a thought.

--
Jim

A certain Jim H, of uk.rec.audio "fame", writes :

Is it possible that, back then, the DACs were only effective up to a
certain rate, at a lower rate than for the ear? If, say the DACS showed
no improvement in sound past 44kHz, your experiment would always show
cd to bo optimal. Just a thought.

AFAIK (Dave P would know more about this than me) the early ADCs weren't
capable of 16 bits of resolution; they clocked in around 14 bits. I
always thought this was another good reason why remastered recordings
often sound so much better.

--

"Jokes mentioning ducks were considered particularly funny." - cnn.com

"Chesney Christ" wrote in message

A certain Jim H, of uk.rec.audio "fame", writes :

Is it possible that, back then, the DACs were only effective up to a
certain rate, at a lower rate than for the ear?

Nope.

, say the DACS
showed no improvement in sound past 44kHz, your experiment would
always show cd to be optimal. Just a thought.

If you want to understand the limitations of he ear vis-a-vis 44 KHz
sampling, please do some listening with the files you can download from
http://www.pcabx.com/technical/low_pass/index.htm .

AFAIK (Dave P would know more about this than me) the early ADCs
weren't capable of 16 bits of resolution; they clocked in around 14
bits. I always thought this was another good reason why remastered
recordings often sound so much better.

Nahh, the usual reason why remastered recordings sound better is that the
original mastering work was so bad, or had different goals.

In some cases the original mastering work appears to have been non-existent.
In other cases it had the goal of making a top-30 hit that grabs the ears,
while the remastering typically concentrates more on natural sound quality.

Hi,

In message , Jim H
writes
In article ,
Clive Backham wrote:
What's left for debate is whether the sampling frequency used for CD
is already at or beyond the limits of human hearing

It is - when digital was in its infancy I and many of my colleagues
had an
opportunity to play with different sampling rates on a wide variety of
material. And the point where any difference is detectable is below that
of CD - *that's* why it was chosen - although the exact rate was down to
TV video parameters so video recorders could be used.


Is it possible that, back then, the DACs were only effective up to a
certain rate, at a lower rate than for the ear? If, say the DACS showed
no improvement in sound past 44kHz, your experiment would always show
cd to bo optimal. Just a thought.

I don't think that DAC speed would have been a problem, even in the
early days of digital. Even in the early to mid 80's there were video
DACs that could run in the tens of megahertz range, though they were
admittedly only 8 bit units, rather than 16 bit.

--
Regards,
Glenn Booth

"Dave Plowman" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Clive Backham wrote:
What's left for debate is whether the sampling frequency used for CD
is already at or beyond the limits of human hearing

It is - when digital was in its infancy I and many of my colleagues had an
opportunity to play with different sampling rates on a wide variety of
material. And the point where any difference is detectable is below that
of CD - *that's* why it was chosen - although the exact rate was down to
TV video parameters so video recorders could be used.

Wasn't there another reason for choosing this particular sampling rate - it
allowed storage of approx 1 hour of music on the CD technology available at
the time?

Mike F

"Mike Fordyce" wrote in message
...
"Dave Plowman" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Clive Backham wrote:
What's left for debate is whether the sampling frequency used for
CD
is already at or beyond the limits of human hearing

It is - when digital was in its infancy I and many of my colleagues
had an
opportunity to play with different sampling rates on a wide variety
of
material. And the point where any difference is detectable is below
that
of CD - *that's* why it was chosen - although the exact rate was
down to
TV video parameters so video recorders could be used.

Wasn't there another reason for choosing this particular sampling
rate - it
allowed storage of approx 1 hour of music on the CD technology
available at
the time?

IIRC it was to get the whole of Beethoven's 9th symphony on a single
disc or is this an urban myth?


--
RobH
The future's dim, the future's mono.

A certain RobH, of uk.rec.audio "fame", writes :

Wasn't there another reason for choosing this particular sampling
rate - it
allowed storage of approx 1 hour of music on the CD technology
available at
the time?

IIRC it was to get the whole of Beethoven's 9th symphony on a single
disc or is this an urban myth?

CD was a 74 minute format (not 60 minutes) right from the very start.

--

"Jokes mentioning ducks were considered particularly funny." - cnn.com

"RobH" wrote in
message ...

"Mike Fordyce" wrote in message
...
"Dave Plowman" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Clive Backham wrote:
What's left for debate is whether the sampling frequency used for
CD
is already at or beyond the limits of human hearing

It is - when digital was in its infancy I and many of my colleagues
had an
opportunity to play with different sampling rates on a wide variety
of
material. And the point where any difference is detectable is below
that
of CD - *that's* why it was chosen - although the exact rate was
down to
TV video parameters so video recorders could be used.

Wasn't there another reason for choosing this particular sampling
rate - it
allowed storage of approx 1 hour of music on the CD technology
available at
the time?

IIRC it was to get the whole of Beethoven's 9th symphony on a single
disc or is this an urban myth?


http://www.urbanlegends.com/misc/cd/...skeptical.html

In article ,
Mike Fordyce wrote:
Wasn't there another reason for choosing this particular sampling rate -
it allowed storage of approx 1 hour of music on the CD technology
available at the time?


Well, 74 minutes is a bit more than approx an hour. But it was said to be
based on the longest common piece of music. Oh - and the maximum then
length of a NTSC U-Matic tape.

--
*If I worked as much as others, I would do as little as they *

Dave Plowman London SW 12
RIP Acorn