Re: Random/OT: Low sample rate audio weirdness/mystery

On Tue, 9 Sep 2025 15:51:10 +0200, David Brown
<david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 08/09/2025 23:57, George Neuner wrote:

   :

>
This means most notes will include sounds that are outside the range
of (normal) human hearing, but you can still /feel/ these sounds [even
the high ones] and miss them when they are absent.
 

>
Nope.  Most notes are much lower, and harmonics of relevance are within
the range of human hearing.  For high enough notes, you simply don't
hear as much harmonic information.

You are forgetting the lower harmonics. If it is true about 3 lower,
then ~1/3 of notes on the piano will include an overtone that is below
the (average) hearing threshold. 

C8 (high C) on the piano is ~4186 Hz.  Assuming the need for the 7th
higher harmonic - 29302 Hz - Nyquist would demand a minimum sampling
rate of 58604/s to accurately reproduce C8.
 

>
You can't accurately hear C8 even when live - you don't get the same
harmonic information as you do with C6, because your ears can't
distinguish the higher harmonics.  Your ears have the same limitations
as any other senses in this manner - you can look at your cat's feet and
count its toes, but if you look at a fly's feet you can't count the toes.

My point was about sampling and reproduction, not whether the note
could be heard.  There is not a lot of piano music that involves the
1st, 7th or 8th octaves - because the 1st octave is jarring and the
7th and 8th (in general) are too high to carry to the audience without
amplification.

In practice, unless you like orchestral, or certain folk or country,
you are not likely to hear much difference between a CD and a decent
quality compressed version of it.  But the CD itself is not a faithful
reproduction of the live performance.
 

>
Good quality compressed formats are often better than CD quality.  The
killer for CD quality is not the sample rate, it is the limited dynamic
range from the linear 16-bit range.  Compressed formats will, in effect,
use a more logarithmic scale (like A-law and mu-law, used to get
comprehensible speech despite a much smaller sample size) that is more
in line with the way the human brain interprets sound.
>

And, of course, if you like orchestral you are more likely to be
listening to vinyl rather than CD.  8-)

>
In theory (but very rarely in practice), when combined with good enough
amplifiers and speakers, vinyl has a a higher dynamic range than CD
audio.  But that is only the case when the record is new.  Play it a few
times, and the wear from the needle will smooth out the tracks enough to
eliminate the difference.

True, but in fact there are laser based record players that do not
touch or damage the media.  You still need to worry about warping, so
it is necessary to store your records properly.

I don't deal much with vinyl records myself anymore, but my sister has
an extensive collection.

But enjoying music is a psychologically, physically, mentally and
biologically complex hobby.  The comfort of the chair you are sitting
in, or the type of reflections and absorptions from the rest of the
room, can make a big difference.  Knowing that you have spent a great
deal of money on your impressive-looking hifi system will improve your
listening experience regardless of what any audio measurement might say.
 Some audiophiles prefer the "valve sound" over "transistor sound" -
not because the sound reproduction is more accurate (it is not - valves
add second harmonic distortion that is non-existent in transistor
amplifiers), but simply because they like it better.