About

This is a site for those interested in digital sound technology.
It replaces one that ‘crashed and burned’ following a sustained attack. I have no idea why people spend their time trying to hack sites, but I suppose we all need our hobbies.

I intend to build this site up with frequent posts about my encounters with technology, both good and bad, and will also be looking at some ‘retro’ technology from time to time (please follow the ‘date’ tags as they begin to appear).

Digital audio recorders are small and compact. They are capable of extremely high quality recording. Most portable digital recorders have built in high quality condenser microphones, so are entirely self contained. Most, but not all, can take external microphones and line inputs.
At the time of writing, there are two accepted standards for sampling:24 bit and 16 bit. Additionally, there are four accepted sample rates.

Audio Compact Discs are digital recordings. The standard for this was set some years ago by a committee that laid down the ‘white book’digital standard. This standard is for 16 bit sampling at 48kHz. This is normally represented as 16/48.

The first number represents the detail that is captured in each sample. It also sets the maximum dynamic range, that is, the difference between the quietest sound (silence) and the loudest.

The second number is the amount of times the sound is sampled per second. In the case of the compact disc, this is 48 thousand times each second. This may seem a lot, but in fact it is not really enough. 48kHz is about twice the frequency that can be detected by the human ear, which is just over 20kHz. Many animals can hear well above this. It has been proved that any particular fequency must be sampled at least twice, in order to be able to reproduce it later, so 48kHz will allow a maximum of 22kHz to be sampled. Sampling more often allows for more accurate recording and reproduction of these higher ranges.

So what can the digital audio recorders do? Well, nearly all of them can manage the ‘white book’ stndard of 16/48. Most can sample in far greater detail, using 24 bits. Because if the way that digital sampling works, the difference between 16 and 24 is massive. Take my word for it.

Sampling rates available are 48kHz, 96kHz and with the better equipment, 192kHz, which is currently referred to as ‘High Definition Audio’.
The downside to these higher rates is that far more storage is required for the same amount of music.

In essence, I would currently recommend you go for 24/96 for a portable recorder, as the quality is excellent, without making an excessive demand on the storage media. Alternatively, 24/192 is ideal if qualiy is your prime requirement, for instance if you intend to do studio mastering, or if you need to apply a lot of effects processing later on.

Beware of noise. This can occur with the 48kHz sampling recorders, or if you want to later make a 16 bit recording from a 24 bit master. Additionally, all of these recorders have a pre-amplifier, to boost the signal before it is converted to digital,. If this pre-amplifier is not to a high quality, then you will start with a noisy signal, and that is what you will end up recording!

One more thing to mention. The statement above refers to the requirements for one (mono) recording. Stereo means double the storage requirement. Some of the recorders on this site are capable of recording to 8 or more channels, so media capacity becomes a real issue. As time marches on, capacity will grow and become cheaper, but I suspect that 24/192 will gradually become the standard, or possibly even this will become outdated as recorders become more powerful and will require ever greater amounts of storage.

I hope that you have found this article useful. Please feedback your comments and any suggestions for improvement.