Audio Technology, Music, and Media by Julian Ashbourn

Author:Julian Ashbourn
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030624293
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

J. AshbournAudio Technology, Music, and Mediahttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62429-3_16

16. High-Resolution Digital Recording and Re-Sampling

Julian Ashbourn1

(1)Verus Mundus, Berkhamsted, UK

Keywords

Re-samplingSampling frequenciesDATSBMSACDMP3High resolution

The dissent voiced about the sound of early digital recording and the specification of the compact disc never quite went away. Those who thought that a different sampling frequency might have usefully been used, and in conjunction with a greater bit depth, continued to experiment with what became known as high-resolution digital audio. They built special analogue to digital convertors and were soon able to make high-resolution recordings, of one sort or another. But to what end? The CD had quickly become established, and most people were happy enough with the sound they were hearing. Even the DCC and MiniDisc formats, which both used data compression techniques, with an associated drop in absolute sound quality, were finding favour among enthusiasts. Furthermore, realising that you could store digital sound on anything that could hold data, the MP3 compressed format, developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group as a way to store images and sound, was also finding favour. So why all the fuss?

It is often the case that, once an idea takes route, it does not go away, and this was very much the situation with regard to high-resolution digital audio. DAT tape had already increased sampling up to 48 kHz and people generally liked the sound of a clean DAT recording. So, maybe it was time to go further. The problem was, of course, that the CD standard had already become established, and so, even if one were to make high-resolution recordings, how would consumers play them back? Especially given that most had high-fidelity equipment designed for analogue sources. There was also the question of dynamic range and bit depth. Sony addressed this with something called Super Bit Mapping (SBM) which sought to squeeze a 20-bit recording into the 16-bit space of CDs. It seemed to work well enough, but I doubt that the average consumer could tell any difference.

While all of these discussions and experiments were taking place, those with good research and development facilities were working behind the scenes. Eventually, in March 1999, Philips and Sony agreed a standard for the Super Audio Compact Disc, which also featured strong copy protection, thus appealing to the record companies. The SACD disc also allowed for single-layer, dual-layer or hybrid formats, allowing the disc to contain both the high-quality SACD track and a compatible CD track, providing the universality that consumers liked. It all should have been fine, with device manufacturers slowly moving to SACD players and the record companies releasing plentiful output of SACD discs. But it simply did not happen. The early SACD discs were expensive, sometimes almost twice the cost of their CD counterparts and, in addition, there were few players available, and they too were expensive. Consumers kept their hands in their pockets again and people slowly lost interest in SACD, even though it was truly a very good format.

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