Have you ever wondered why there are so many different sample rates and why? *The compact disc samples at 44.1kHz/16 bits. *But then there’s these other rates like 48kHz, 88.2kHz, 96kHz, 176.4kHz, 192kHz. *Wow, that’s a lot and the spacing doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. *How did we get to these numbers anyway?


The first thing to understand is there are basically only two main sample frequencies: 44.1kHz and 48kHz. *Everything else is a variant of one of those two numbers. *96kHz is a doubling of 48kHz, while 192kHz is again doubling that number. *88.2kHz and 176.4kHz are doubled numbers of the original CD standard of 44.1kHz. *But why do we have two numbers, 44.1kHz and 48kHz as the standards? *After all, these are pretty darned close to each other. *Doesn’t make much sense. *You’re right.


There’s a lot of opinions on how we got two primary sample rates so closely spaced together and here’s the best I can make out the history. *It’s an interesting story filled with a lot of twists and turns and we have space for only a few of them.


Back in the late 1970

[Source: http://www.pstracks.com/pauls-posts/192khz/11811/]