On Thu, Apr 27, 2006 at 02:13:17AM -0400, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:
On Thu, 27 Apr 2006, Chris McCormick wrote:
representation of two waveforms at Nyquist; if you have a squarewave and a sawtooth wave, both sampled at 44100 and playing at a frequency of 22050, these waves will both be represented by two samples each, correct? So when they are sent back into the analogue domain, won't these two waveforms look identical? Wouldn't they look like exactly the same sound? On analogue gear, wouldn't it be the case that the exact shape of the waveforms would be more accurately represented (e.g. a sawtooth and a squarewave at 22050 would look like such)?
yeah, it would be more accurate, but are ears capable of hearing the difference? If the resonance of each sensor of the ear is linear, then each sensor can only react to one frequency band, and so if the smallest sensor's frequency is about 20000 Hz, then the ear is incapable of discerning.
This sounds a bit speculative to me - too many assumptions. It's probably not wise to be so quick to dismiss the viewpoint of "analogue cultism" until we have concrete research that confirms that humans are unable to perceive such differences.
Best,
Chris.
------------------- chris@mccormick.cx http://mccormick.cx