Article 2: How Sampling Rate Affects Sound Quality | |
Sampling rate is the rate (or frequency) at which an analog signal is converted into digital data. Because sampling rate is a frequency, it is expressed in Hertz (abbreviated Hz) which is units of cycles per second. CDs use a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz. This means that 44,100 samples were taken every second to construct a digital representation of the sound. The graphic below shows two digital representations of a sine wave. The sine wave sampled at 44,100 Hz is smooth and, for all practical purposes, indiscernible from the way an analog sine wave looks (and sounds). By contrast, the sine wave sampled at 9,500 Hz looks jagged and rough. This digital representation is not as accurate as the 44,100 Hz representation, both in appearance and sound. The degradation in sound quality caused by sampling rate reduction becomes more drastic as the waveform becomes more complex. Thus when a waveform for voice or music is sampled at a greatly reduced rate, the resulting audio becomes muffled and noisy. | |
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