96 vs. 48 or 44.1 kHz sampling --> scientific test, perhaps here is the 1. listening test ! Options

[user]

http://www.hfm-detmold.de/texts/de/hfm/eti...ten/seite1.html


http://www.hfm-detmold.de/texts/de/hfm/eti...ten/seite9.html

etc.

(seite = site / page)



it is a summary of German diploma work, written 1998, so it should be independent from companies like Zoony etc.

It was quite a good reading, I hope, somebody of the germans could translate important things, sorry, I have no time.

So, the result was:




44.1 kHz, 16 bit:

they used Tascam-DAT-Recorder DA-30 MKII as reference for CD standard, 44.1/16.

They tell, that this was picked out very clearly from the majority.

(btw, they show a graph, that says, that 16 bit has in mid frequency range a noise level, which is higher than our hearing abilities. very interesting !)

so, 44.1/16 is not sufficient.






48 kHz, 24 bit

one DAC was preferred over analogue original, but why could not be figured out. So there was difference but which ?

another DAC was able to reproduce the analogue original as best DAC of all tested, better than all the 96 kHz DACs !!!!!

in blind test it was 50/50 %, so this DAC could not be distinguihsed from original source.



96 kHz:

Dacs had worse performance than the 48 khZ ones.
but some were "beta-versions...".



Look at the graphs, especially site 9.

Sorry for this short post, but I think, it may interest you...

This post has been edited by user: Jan 30 2003, 12:43

[user]

Well, if I understand the German right, they did illustrate that listeners could distuinguish a CD quality recording from an 'original' (how did they play back _that_ ?).

The thing is that the results seem to depend too much on the used DAC rather than on the format itself, e.g. the 48khz DAC being chosen over the 96khz ones.

yep, they write it, that every DAC will have its own influence due to analogue in and out circuits of each DAC.


actually they did NOT take a good CD-recording.

They played music in another room and used best available studio techniques to (record and) transmit it to the several to be tested DACs.



They had one very important test-setup for testing the main question, they asked: 96 vs. 48 kHz.
as this would be dependent on DAcs, too, they took a 96 kHz recording, and used some downsampling to 48 kHz, and then playback through 96 kHz, again, to test this 48 kHz-signals gainst the 96 kHz-originals , both playable through same 96-DAC.