[Flac] Standard encoding rates?

Ralph Giles
Tue, 05 Apr 2005 08:26:29 -0000

On Tue, Apr 05, 2005 at 02:26:03AM -0500, Hal Vaughan wrote:

> Is there a list somewhere of "standard" encoding rates?  I know,
for example,
> CDs are encoded at 44100, as is a lot of digital sound, but I've seen
> programs that specify different levels of quality (like radio, phone, tape,
> CD) and I'd like to know if there are some encoding rates that are
accepted
> as standardized for recording at different levels of quality.

Well, where analog formats are concerned these are estimates, and in
there is no *standard*. "CD quality" is 44100 Hz stereo with 16 bits
per
channel. FM radio is limited to 17 kHz iirc, so in theory you could
sample at 32 kHz, but in practice people usually use 44.1 or 48 kHz and
just lowpass filter. AM radio is lower quality (mono) but I don't know
what the digital equivalent would be. Telephone is nominally 8 kHz mono
(i.e. really bad) though I think the use of digital voice codecs in the
last 20 years may have improved on this a bit.

Maybe someone else can comment on tape fidelity. I think the issue there
has more to do with recording artefacts than bandwidth.

FWIW,
 -r