Yes, 44.1KHz and 48KHz cover the entire hearing spectrum. However, it does
not cover it well. Resolution gets worse as you go higher in the frequency
spectrum. Therefore, really high frequencies only get sampled a few times.
For instance, a 44.1KHz sample rate is only capable of sampling a 12KHz
frequency 3.675 times a second. That leaves you with a very poor
digitization at 12KHz. 96KHz does a much better job at providing a digital
representation of higher frequencies.

If you can, take a recording at 44.1KHz and high-pass filter it until you
only have really high frequencies. You will clearly hear why lower sample
rates are inadequate.

Toby Seay
Assistant Professor - Music Industry Program
Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design
Drexel University Audio Archives
Macalister 3016 - 215-895-5880
http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~js553/




On 8/17/12 10:37 AM, "Henry Borchers" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>I¹ve been wondering what the real benefits of archiving music and spoken
>word at 96 kHz and above.  From what I understand, Nyquist­Shannon tells
>us that the highest frequency we can hear on digital recording is half of
>the sample rate, so 44.1 and 48 already covers the spectrum of our
>hearing range.  
>I do know that high speed recordings at higher bit rate can be very
>useful for when you are trying to transfer large volumes of long running
>tape in a short time but I am curious what the rational and benefits are
>for transfer real time at 96 kHz.
>
>
>
>-- 
>Henry Borchers
>Broadcast Media Digitization and Curation Librarian
>University of Maryland