[sdiy] Taking a Step towards Digital Synthesis?....

[Colin f]

> I thought that 48 kHz rates were in professional use before 
> the creation of
> the CD? If that's true, then the engineers who originally chose 48 kHz
> would not have been trying to outperform the then-nonexistent CD audio
> format.

Possibly. According to this page -
http://www.amek.com/oldsite/datashee/aesebu.htm
the earliest digital audio recordings were made at 31.25 then 32 kHz,
with 48kHz chosen as an 'easy' conversion from 32kHz.
But it doesn't say when these rates were first used.

> We've been capable of doing better for a long time now, so 
> let's just move
> on to something better, please.

Super Audio CD sounds excellent to me - it's a 2-odd MHz direct
bitstream format, with multi-channel support.
I believe Sony and co will be pushing this one hard, as the encryption
is all done in hardware (i.e. much harder than CSS to crack) and they
don't offer digital outputs.
But we're straying well off topic here, so I'll shut up now...

Colin f