[BC] CD vs LP

[Robert Orban]

At 10:32 AM 9/24/2008, you wrote:
>Soundstream was founded by the inventor of digital
>audio recording, Professor Thomas Stockham, of MIT.
>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Stockham .
>He also invented, or was first to use RLE compression,
>which I implemented as a technician.
>  http://book.abominablefirebug.com/RunLengthEncoding.html
>
>His recordings used “true” 16-bit converters which had a
>separate sign-bit so that the AC signal was + and ­ 65536
>codes. Unfortunately, it had a “wide zero,” i.e., zero could
>be both plus and minus. This produced a one-code dead-
>band. Also, there was no dither for improving the low-level
>resolution.  Nevertheless, it was the start of something grand.

Except for the missing dither (which is strange, 
because the importance of dither was known in the 
telecommunications industry as early as the 
mid-1960s), Stockham arguably got it right, 
including the 50 kHz sample rate. Substantially 
later, Bob Stuart of Meridian published work 
based on known psychoacoustic principles arguing 
that, theoretically, no audible benefit could be 
obtained from increasing the sample rate above 55 
kHz or so. The Soundstream recorder was close enough.

(Unfortunately, Stuart later realized that if he 
at least appeared to drink the "high-end" 
Kool-Aid, Meridian could sell more product into that market.)

Theory aside, every serious double-blind study I 
have seen has failed to show that listeners can 
distinguish 44.1 kHz from higher sample rates in 
a statistically significant way. While this 
doesn't prove a negative, it strongly suggests 
that 44.1 kHz is good enough for distribution.