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Originally posted by Chaasm71:
The 'scientific facts' presented regarding the effect of ultrasonic frequencies as they pertain to audio were presented by people who work for a speaker manufacturer. I'm not saying they are definitively wrong, but I'd question the motivations of the person presenting it to you. Tanoy sells speakers...they want you to buy them and pay LOTS of money to do so. So...they better present their speakers as doing something really special. If there are already speakers that can cover 20-20k with flat response, what's left? I don't know about you, but if Dr. X at Microsoft presented 'scientific' research that 'proved' that test subjects found the whiring noises of PCs to be more pleasing than Macs, would you run out and buy a PC? I'd certainly take it with a grain of salt.
One interesting point is the idea of the ultrasonics beating between tracks that were recorded separately. That could make a difference, but I think that the DAs filter the sounds down below 20kHz before such interference could occur. Does anyone know what the input bandpass is for these higher sample rate converters? If they DO have a 20-20k bandpass, then those ultrasonics would never get printed to disk, and so never get a chance to beat during reconstruction. Interesting idea though. It could imply a design change in AD DA converter filters to capture such an effect.
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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I understand your point, but I look at everything with a skeptical eye. I was an Electrical Engineering major in college, and what he's saying sounds like some of my coursework.
However, I disagree with his main point. I'm interested in the 96kHz+ sampling for the CAPTURE and the PROCESSING phases. The interactions of the ultrasonics, and the mathematical retention of data, would happen during the computer's processing.
I'm not trying to imply that we need to reproduce inaudible frequencies from our speakers. Once the interactions of the ultrasonics have produced their beats, those are all we need to output. BUT , you have to capture and process them FIRST.
In other words, I'm not going to go out and buy super tweeters. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
My friends in surround sound would disagree. There exists a group out there who wants to capture high sample rates because they need it for precision placement of sharp transients in 3-d space because we can hear 5-15 microsecond delays between our ears. But that's another topic.