Re: 48k vs 96k or 192k..can we hear the difference?
1. Depends on the converter. Some sound better at 44.1, some at 96, etc.. I could hear a difference every time on my RME converters; with my Apogee, no difference to my ears.
2. Depends on the plugin processing. Some plugins suffer from aliasing artifacts above Nyquist and require "oversampling" to get it right (or operation at a higher sample rate.) Some are fine either way.
Aside from that, overall, I think bit depth has a much higher impact on digital audio in general. I can almost always tell the difference between 24-bit and 16-bit audio by ear (depends on the source material).
Like several have said in this thread, there are soooo many tiny factors that add up to your music's final fidelity...The guitarist keeping his fingernails trimmed will have a much higher impact than sample rate every time. Use whatever makes sense to you, keeping in mind CPU impact, hard drive space, etc..
|