Audio Systems: Why is more than 44.1 sample rate necessary?, linear pcm, golden ears

Question
Hi:

Why are newer digital audio devices recording linear PCM at sample-rate higher than 44.1 KHz? Why is this necessary for LPCM? I can understand for SACD and DSD but why would a Wave/CD-audio file require any sample-rate higher than 44.1 KHz? Isn't 44.1 KHz sufficient to cover the entire human hearing range?

The maximum audio sample-rate I've read about is 192 KHz for DVD-audio. Again, I must ask, why is such a high sample-rate necessary unless you want to entertain dogs or bats whose hearing range can go well up to 100 KHz?


Thanks,

Green

Answer
If you ever have the opportunity to come across a true audio buff, especially one who prefers vinyl to CD, when a cartridge, tonearm and transcription turntable are of performance quality, you will hear something about harmonics that reinforce the fundamental frequencies. Myself included there are people with trained ears or a gift of perfect pitch that can easily hear those differences. In truth the sonority is felt even by the layman when it's A/B'd. Even though Lucas has a claim to fame, since the first Star Wars film, of mandating that THX become the standard for which all sound reproduction must surpass any vinyl known to man, it was also adopted by the audio industries golden ears. There truly is a difference, but it cannot be appreciated unless the recording is pristine because it will bring out imperfections as well. You are not going to hear it unless all of the audio equipment in the chain can reproduce the dynamics and frequencies. 44.1 is far from being a perfect sampling rate. Contained in it are LSB's which are truncated lost ambient information. That information adds warmth to a CD. SACD is a fine attempt at processing a CD to get a little closer to 24/192 but it's only 20bit technology and is still like a 4x3 video image being stretched using processing to fit a 16x9 display.

Some of us do hear like dogs & bats. Go into a true listening room with a fine Telarc recording and be prepared to be blown out of your seat. The average to really good sound systems that are marketed in the states will not show you the benefits. You'll hear it more often in Japan.

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