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RE: 44.1 kHz shown scientifically to be inadequate

Werner wrote:

Methinks the two above quotes are rather unscientific in their formulation.

The nits you pick at are undoubtedly present (i.e. some might find the text a little bit ambiguous, especially if they are so minded) but to complain of Kunchar’s writing in this context is a bit like complaining that, OK, that Stephen Hawking fellow is fine at physics and all that - but he’s shite at football. I don’t think the meaning is that hard to fathom.

We don't need any scientific publications for that.

The point was made in a note aimed at audio forum members, not in a scientific publication.

There were no experiments involving 'sharp peaks separated by 5us'. The auditory relevance of 44.1kHz not resolving two such peaks was not proven at all. That proof was not even on the agenda.

I don’t read Kunchar’s “FAQ” as suggesting that the point has been “proved”, rather that it is a logical consequence of his results. You suggest as much in the previous paragraph of your post (“We don't need any scientific publications for that”).

Again, you seem to be complaining of possible ambiguities in a text aimed at a lay audience rather than examining the experiments themselves. The latter strikes me as a more fruitful route. I don’t want to get into “quote swapping” but in the paper describing the low-pass filtering experiment, the phenomenon is described thus (“Procedure”, para 1):

The control tone was perceived to have a sharper or brighter timbre whereas the filtered one had a duller quality (no difference in loudness was perceived except for the largest setting of t=30 μs).


Note that this is for differences in a stimulus (input signal) that are so minute that they had previously been dismissed by one and all as completely imperceptible. No one in the field had even felt the need to construct apparatus competent to measure them.

Now that their perceptibility has been established, we can agree that RBCD recordings are inherently unable to reproduce that level of detail. A technology now 30 years old does not, in fact, capture “perfect sound forever”. It’s good - but it’s not perfect.

Kunchar points that out and all hell breaks loose. He doesn’t suggest that we have to dump our CD collections. My DAC samples at 44.1 kHz only but I’m not planning to throw it in the sea (certainly not at that price). And so on.

But I can readily see how these findings provide strong support for those who consistently report that better quality sound is provided by good recordings made at higher resolutions.

It seems almost self-evident that the ultra-fast rise times encountered in percussive transients, the female voice and so on push RBCD to its limits. I just cannot see what the fuss is about.

I’m sorry but I don’t understand your points about cellphones and about satellites not getting lost or why the points are relevant. Nor do I know who JJ is. All that’s probably my fault.

Dave

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