Understanding Sample Rate

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6 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

 

this doesn't take into consideration the infinite frequencies in a complex signal...

 

Folks keep telling you your "thinking is incorrect" but not why.

 

The reason is because of what mansr said, your understanding of frequency incorrect because you think it is "complex".  You are imagining that frequency somehow captures each of those "9 million" singers.  It does not, it captures a composite of those 9 million singers.  The frequency is thus simple - it is one (and not many).  

 

I am simplifying a bit for obvious purposes...

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Also, for those engineers - beerandmusic's understanding of frequency and sound is very common.  It is a laypersons perspective and reveals the distance between your education and theirs...not to give your already inflated egos a boost or anything

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Just now, beerandmusic said:

 

 

are you suggesting that an infinite amount of frequencies don't exist?

or just that they may not be discernible to hearing?

 

 

Yep.  Band limited hearing, your hearing (and every other humans - or living creatures) is in no way "infinite".  Also, see my earlier post, frequency is not complex in the way you are imagining it to be.

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Another thing that might help - imagine how a dynamic driver works.  Now imagine how it would produce more than one frequency at any point (or more accurately, a defined period) in time.  How would it produce a "complex" number of frequencies during this period?

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4 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

 

Let me ask this....

is it possible to have an infinite amount of frequencies between 600hz and 700hz?

e.g. is it not possible to have 600hz 600.001, 600.002, 600.003, etc...

whether it is discernible to hear the difference from one person's voice to another, not being the question.

 

 

Yes and no.  The problem is how you are framing the question, which is in turn related to how you are thinking about frequency (no offense intended).  You are imagining that frequency, and thus sound, and thus the sound energy that your organic ear/brain converts into what you hear, is a "complex" composite of multiple frequencies values that all occur at the same point in time.

 

The truth is closer to this:  what is the average of all those "infinite", or even finite, frequencies?  That average is what is in fact the reality of sound, sound recording, sound reproduction, and hearing.  As manser said, frequency is "continuous", it is one thing - not many.

 

What I just said is still a laypersons explication and is itself "wrong" but I hope it helps.

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2 minutes ago, GUTB said:

Some of you guys are confused about something very basic.

 

We don't hear "frequencies", we hear pressurized atmosphere. That does seem like a pedantic distinction, but still helpful for grasping the situation -- the situation being that high res sounds better than Redbook.

 

It's an established fact that human beings can't hear anything beyond 20 kHz -- with the exception of children who can sometimes sense sound beyond that. 20 kHz is a unit of measurement of a frequency. A 20 kHz tone is a frequency that represents an oscillation every 50 microseconds. This 20 kHz tone exists in the atmosphere as a 1.7 cm long wavelength of pressurized air travelling at 343 meters a second. This wavelength of pressurized air does oscillate at 20 kHz, ie, one oscillation every 50 microseconds,  but our ear-brain system does not also operate at 50 microsecond intervals. When the wavelength of pressurized air hits your ear, your auditory system reacts at least as quickly as 10 microseconds -- not that this is the lower limit, just what has been shown in one experiment. A 10 microsecond oscillation period results in a 100 kHz tone, which we obviously can't hear, but we CAN distinguish moments of sound at least as short at 10 microseconds.

 

The situation is thus summed up: we can't hear beyond 20 kHz, but high resolution audio supplies more audio information which makes it sound better.

 

How does the reaction time lead to "audio information which makes it sound better", and what is the nature of this "information", and how do you know the organic system possess this "information"?  Did you read all that in a Synergistic Research manual?

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3 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

 

Actually that is the exact point i am trying to get to....that the average may appear to have no discernible difference, but in actuality they do....

 

How?

 

The average is not a guess - it is calculated and the above referenced theory (supported by a large body of research) reveals that this calculation is correct.  What is the calculation missing, and what kind of frequency "information" are you hypothesising as existent that the theory does not capture?

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1 minute ago, GUTB said:

 

Study performed  in 1971 on the 10 microsecond figure. 

 

Also, listening tests have shown a clear preference for high res. There’s a reason why high res sounds better. Once you agree with reality you can move onto learning about why the phenomena takes.

 

You have not connected the dots.  You have a reaction time (I grant it), and a study.  What is the relationship in the very terms that both accept (i.e. modern physics)?  How do they, when brought together in your imagination, "create" information for which current theory does not capture?

 

Your out of your depth - your a man who has heard a story about a man who found a  horn, and another story about a man who has a horse, and are now asserting that unicorns must be real...

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2 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

 

just for example....I would say that out of the billions of people on this planet, that if any two people are paired in harmony that they will all sound different although on paper probably a good 1% would sound the same to even the best listeners.

 

I am suggesting that every sound has "dna" or uniqueness that man knows nothing about.

 

Well, like you said physics would not "recognize" your hypothetical.  What is it about a pressure wave, which is simply (simplistically) the mere movement (somewhat orderly) of a medium (in this case air), that has a physical "dna"?  Would you say the speed of your car has a physical "has a dna" different from every other car at the same speed?  Would you say that your wife's nagging has a physical "dna", something different than the complex almamorgation of her real dna, her emotions, and your behavior?

 

Your rather haphazardly mashing domains of knowledge, physical and non physical realities all together in your imagination to create something about sound that is...well, it's a unicorn

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1 minute ago, beerandmusic said:

 

I don't think physics can prove God either (wink).

 

No, but physics (at least properly done - let's ignore certain popular writers who are philosophical materialists - the material is their "god") can explain to you why God is a hypothetical outside of its domain, and thus can neither prove, disprove, or even comment intelligibly on God.  Your imaginary hypothetical is something within physics domain, and is certainly not a comment on God either.

 

I hate to seemingly discourage the imagination, I really do - there is nothing that is more fully human.  However, even the imagination happens within a cosmos, a physis and imagination itself can bend, but not break the physis.  Otherwise, Chaos reigns in nature and there are no order to the universe at all...but even a child understand this is wrong...

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20 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

 

or to be said in a different way, all sound can be accurately captured by sampling 44000 times in a second or 264000 times in a minute ....i call hogwash.

 

 

 

Putting aside your specific math, why not?  What is it about a waveform that you believe is complex, such that a finite sample rate can not describe a finite reality?  Do you assume a waveform is an infinite reality - essentially, unmeasurable? Is a waveform a transcendent reality, a kind of god?

 

Let's say you have 3 singers in the room with you, and you ask them to all sing at the same time.  How many waveforms are you hearing when they do this?  Let's say there are 300 singers in a large hall - how many waveforms are you hearing?

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1 minute ago, beerandmusic said:

but the composite is changing every quanta time and the average is one of an infinite possibilities....even between 600 and 700hz there is an infinite number of compositions, and changing an infinite amount of times in less than a pico second....the question again is what is discernable, not what is actual or accurate.

 

Ah, but what is the rate of that change?  Your not saying that the change is radom - at one point in time going this way, and at another point in time going another way.  No, the waveform - that which is changing - is changing in an orderly way correct?  Your not asserting sound is simply chaos, or is random movement like heat?  Why would a creature benefit from the sensory perception of pure randomness?  No, a waveform is an orderly change, and that order can be measured (and in the case of our hearing, sensed and perceived).

 

Your emphasizing the wrong thing in your imagination.  Try to imagine order in the chaos, a form in the midst of infinity...

 

 

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4 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

 

 

one sample or 1/44000 of a second, call it T1, you can have an infinite number of different frequencies all within 600 to 700 hz (which the composite can be equally infinitie) and occur an infinite amount of times between T1 and T2.

 

 

 

No you can not  - or there would be no such thing as "frequency" .  A frequency is an orderly waveform defined and bound by both time and the rate of the movement of the medium.  You are claiming that the medium (in this case air) can move in more than one direction at the same time - "infinitely".   Essentially, you are claiming that waveforms don't exist...

 

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Just now, beerandmusic said:

Or to put it even differently...and put simply...

 

man can hear both 600.00001 and 600.00002 frequencies very easily.  They cannot discern between them, but if

Agree....this is where i completely blew all of this stuff off, when the suggestion comes into play about transition...the point being, in a complex waveform you can have an infinite number of transitions starting, occuring, and stopping in any fraction of any timeslice.

 

What is, exactly, a "complex waveform"?  Further, are you claiming sound is this complex waveform?

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1 minute ago, beerandmusic said:

If you try to apply order, that may be easier to apply to math, but in reality, there is no order.

 

If that were the case, then sound itself, to say nothing of sound reproduction would not exist - it would be an impossibility.

 

What is real, is the somewhat counter-intuitive fact that sound is a relatively simple (and simply described) waveform phenomena that even the crudest of 19th century electronics could reproduce.

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3 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

I am a layman, but i do have a high iq, and i am certain i don't have the correct terminology....when i say a complex waveform, I am just talking about a waveform with a lot of frequencies....or a composition if you will.

 

What is sound at any point in time (remember your basic math and physics- a point has no dimensionality) - is the waveform complex or singular?

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2 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

you can have a million different frequencies occuring at any time....take example of a million different frequencies all between 600 and 700 hz such the composition averages to 650hz in one pico second 651 in another pico second etc....but then granulate it even smaller.....e..g... 650.00001, 650.0005, etc...

are they discernable no....is one more accurate than the other depending on sample rate...yes.

 

Sample rate does not describe the points (i.e the discernable differences), but rather the rate of change in the waveform - and it calculates this fully (i.e. there is no error) and thus it fully describes the waveform.

 

Think of it this way - you are counting the atoms - no, the subatomic particles in the paint of the Mona Lisa - you have forgotten what a painting is - she is a waveform, not the particles themselves...

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3 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

 

Let's talk about real...

 

what does 600hz sound like

what does 600.000001 sound like

 

no one can discern the difference, but both are very real and both are very easily heard.

one can be a composite of 2 frequencies at T1 and the other at T2, but if T1.5 was averaged in (that doesn't exist) , it would be 600.000005, which would be more accurate...

 

And sampling at 44.1khz fully captures this waveform...fully...

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1 minute ago, beerandmusic said:

 

DSD samples higher than CD, right?

So everyone in this thread believes DSD is hogwash, right?

 

How would you describe DSD - it samples very high, but how does a single bit (i.e. a 1 or a 0, a left or right, an up or down) describe sound?  What is it about a waveform that can be accurately described by a single bit (or perhaps more accurately, a bit-that-describes-a-change- in the waveform)?

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1 minute ago, beerandmusic said:

 

it can't capture it accurately because it doesn't even take samples when much of the changes are taking place.

 

It does not have to - it only has to describe the rate of change.  Your assuming that because a change takes place, that it is an unordered change, a random change.  If that were the case, it would not be a frequency, a waveform, a sound.  Your describing heat, not sound (and yet, even heat can be measured).

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1 minute ago, beerandmusic said:

there is not enough bits in the world to describe the rate of change in a complex waveform with an infinite number of frequencies, even in the single pluck of a guitar string, let alone 10 million singers.

 

Complex waveforms, as you imagine them, don't exist.  Remember how this conversation started, folks were correcting you on what a waveform (a "frequency") actually is.  It is simple (one), not complex (many).

 

You never really answered my question - how many waveforms do you hear when 3, or 300, or 3,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 singers sing at the same time?

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3 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

there is not enough bits in the world to describe the rate of change in a complex waveform with an infinite number of frequencies, even in the single pluck of a guitar string, let alone 10 million singers.

 

 

Also, bit's (i.e. math) dont describe the thing itself (the particles moving in the air), they describe a waveform, a rate of change, a frequency (which despite the ambiguous claims of MQA is a description of both the shape of the wave and the time that this occurs in)...

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Just now, ralphfcooke said:

That's called noise

 

If he granted the existence of waveforms, it would be.  However, he does not so what he is really describing is an infinite number of points moving randomly...is that quantum noise?

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14 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

ok, correct me

 

ok, correct me, on this simple exercise in correct verbiage.

 

a song has a guitar and a vocalist.

the singer sings 10,000 different frequencies in one song and plays the guitar with 20,000 different frequencies.

 

one song = one complex waveform with a multitude of different frequencies always changing and in an unorganized manner (e.g. singer sneezes in middle of song).

 

 

All those "frequencies" (here I am misusing it as you are  - like it is a description of a point or a particle ) are related how?  Through time.  All these "frequencies" occur at the same point in time?  Nope.  How many frequencies do you hear at the same point in time?  One or many?  Is even a complex waveform (such as sound - it is three dimensional) continuous?  Yes.  Is the rate of change continuous or random?  Continous.  Can rate of change be described?  Have you ever taken calculus?  Can the area under a curve be measured fully?  If not, how does that bridge you drive over every day not collapse under the pressure of random, point like, infinite change?

 

You have a particle like, infinite mental image of waveforms and sound, which is simply not reality.

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7 minutes ago, GUTB said:

 

What the test showed was that humans’ time-domain perception is much higher than our frequency perception. 

 

Humans’ ability to receive high frequency information is shown elsewhere.

 

Just now, psjug said:

A narrow pulse, say 10us, repeated every 500us, is a kind of waveform.  Is it your position that if we can hear this we are hearing ultrasonics?

 

I think his position is that frequency is independent of time, and vice versa.  It's this "particle like" mental image of waveforms again...