Hi Richard:

NARAS recommends at least 88.2kHz here:
http://www.grammy.org/files/pages/DeliveryRecommendations.pdf

Excerpt:
----------------------------
The Secondary Masters (Backups/”Safeties”) should have sampling rates and precisions equal to or 
better than the “Original Master” (88.2, 96, 176.4, 192, 352.8, and 384 kHz are recommended, as are 
24 or greater bit depths). These same sampling rates and precisions are required for A/D conversion. 
Also, there should be no level adjustments, truncation, dither or noise-shaping, or modification of 
the digital signal. Please note: it is not advisable to “upsample” the Primary Master in order to 
create a Secondary Master.
----------------------------

Two different institutional clients of mine, working with grand money, have specified 96K as a 
requirement of the grant. I think if it's audio-only transfers and the material will be used in CD 
format for on-site listening, copies sold or given to patrons/clients, etc, a sampling rate of 88.2 
would be my preference, and I will now cite the NARAS document to back up my case that 88.2 is just 
as good as 96, depending on your purposes (I understand about 96k being preferable where a 48k user 
or distribution copy would be involved, such as a video-content DVD.

I totally agree with your previously-stated ideas about not needing high sampling rates for 
low-bandwidth audio such as oral histories, and I would say that in those cases the Academy 
recommendations are overkill. But, some grant-donors insist on these recommendations and net-net it 
doesn't bother me in an age of really cheap per-gig hard drives. 15 years ago, it might have gotten 
me worked up.

As for the idea that 192kHz is somehow inferior to 96k, that sounds like audiophoolery or outdated 
ideas based on older hardware. I would say it's unecessary overkill to sample at that high a rate, 
for the reasons you stated, but the playback results shouldn't sound inferior to 96k unless 
something is being done wrong by the equipment or the user.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard L. Hess" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2012 2:20 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Recording_78rpm_records


> Hello, Dale,
>
> IASA TC04 Ver 2 says the archival standard is 48/24 but higher rates may be beneficial for many 
> program types.
>
> http://www.iasa-web.org/tc04/key-digital-principles
>
> While 192 ks/s is available in some release formats, those made from analogue tape probably will 
> not benefit from the additional bandwidth between 96 ks/s and 192 ks/s. 192 ks/s captures a large 
> portion of bandwidth where the analogue tape performance is undefined, but isn't broad enough to 
> capture the bias even if it were available at the signal output terminal of the tape machine, 
> which it generally is not (partially by intent, and partially by accident).
>
> I had a client ask me to do a transfer at 192/24 and I asked him to confirm. He called two other 
> list members that he knew and they both said 96/24 was fine. I was glad to get the independent 
> confirmation. I know there are some comments that 192 is inferior to 96...can anyone point me to 
> an article that states that and explains it?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Cheers,
>
> Richard
>
> On 2012-04-11 2:06 PM, D. Allen wrote:
>> isn't the aes-ebu archival standard 96/24?
>> by release format, are you including the 192-96/24 releases available or just cd?
>> Lavry has product with 192/24 now.
>>
>> Dale Francis
>>
>>
>
> -- 
> Richard L. Hess                   email: [log in to unmask]
> Aurora, Ontario, Canada           (905) 713 6733     1-877-TAPE-FIX
> http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
> Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.
>