Keyplayer: Did you save at 48K or 96K? BTW, what was the project, if you don't mind my asking?

Do those 2" 2 trk machines do 96k? Stop laughing, i'm axing you a question!!!!!

Key, the point isn't that analog ADDS anything like air, it just preserves what's there in terms of sonic subtlety and depth of mix. 96K does a pretty deceny job of this too largely because of the decreased aliasing artifacts in the converters. Transferring off analog at 44/48 would be no better than recording that way except you'd could hit the tape hard and you'd get a slight boost (known as "head bunp" around 42Hz (at 15 ips)). The point is, as long as your CONVERTING at high-sample, your converters sound better, even if you drop-sample rate convert at 2:1 and only STORE at 48K. Y'see?

Key,

Tape wears out to, and a trained ear can start to hear it as soon as 5 passes. Vinal on the other hand is being scrapped by the needle just as bad as the tape heads and guides but on the vinal it is more important not to play the record more than once a day and hopfully only one side per day. It has something to do with the heat generatted by the friction of that needle.

Of course that is just more useless info that won't get any of us further along in our 'budding' recording biz, but it was interesting when it was explained by a great mastering engineer at the now defunct record manufacturing plant Monark in LA.

Jeremy, the frequancy response of analog stops being flat at like 20 or so Khz, Im sure 96K does get some sort of a repersention as it is basicly only two octives higher than 20+K but each octave is only 25% of the fundamental,as a harmonic, so 96K would be 25% of 25% of like that 24K signal that is rollinf off at like 12 or 18 db per octave.

So to answer your question, yes analog does do 96K, how well it does 96K is an issue that probablly shouldn't be debated.... snicker, snicker

Rupert Neve puts 120K chokes on his gear because his crew can hear the differance in some psyco-accoustical relm that I think only alen halfbreeded human/dog eared souls can deal with. I hear something up there, but I couldn't guarntee it is audio.

Key, the concept was "who knows where digital will be in 2 or 3 years", so we mixed analog. This is STILL the BEST form of archiving for the long term!! We blew it back into PT at 44.1/16-bit so we could do CDs. If we ever decide to release it DVD-A or SACD then we'll blow it back into a DAW at the current sampling rate. The 1/2" analog is the best, safest format we could currently put it on.

Bart:
I'm with you, Digitrax. Where were you the last time this came up--when I said the same thing?

Jeremy, I can't help it--I'm still laughing.

Jeff, if I went to 96K, I would still keep the DA7 for my monitor system. If you can tolerate a small amount of latency in headphone monitors, a DA7 with a pair of AD/DA cards for the direct-outs used in conjunction with the Furman 16 channel headphone system is a great combination. Actually, that Furman system is next on my list of things to get and this is precisely what I intend to do in the near future. All the DA7 inputs are high impedance so it should work well.

I'll be keeping my DA7 for quite a while. This thing is cool!

Bart-

So has anyone else noticed the irony of the big industry push? On one hand it's implied that soon anything less than 192K will be less than pro quality while at the same time consumer gear is heading towards compressed storage systems like MP(empty)-3's that would seem to negate any gains made by the higher rates.
As I already have "debts no honest man can pay "I'll be locked into 24bit 44.1 for the near future at least. Hopefully my clients won't start screaming for 96 for another year or two.
Don't get me wrong, if I were king I'd have two 2" studers and the best convertors at the highest sample rate that money could buy but at this time I only have one loyal subject and that's my blind dog...............
Hopi

Those of you doing 96khz work. How would choose to down sample and go to 16 bit? Any software you would recommed or would you go thru your DA and back into the AD

Jeff,
Look at this thread -> Mixing higher resolution files: A Question
Bart-