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The Rise of "Hybrid" Vinyl-MP3s
Khyber writes to let us know that First Word Records, a U.K.-based record label, is now selling vinyl records that come with codes that allow you to download a 320-kbit MP3 of that record's content. The article mentions another independent label, Saddle Creek, that also offers DRM-free downloads with some vinyl records. The co-founder of First Word is quoted on why they didn't DRM the download: "Making a legal, paid-for version of the file less useful than a copied or pirated one doesn't make sense."
Yes. Nyquist. There's a Theorem, a Limit, and a Guy that discovered these, all by the same name.
A 44.100kHz sample rate will theoretically get you up to a 22.050kHz max frequency in the audio signal. Humans can focus on any part of the audible spectrum, but voices won't typically fall outside the 300-3300 Hz range. Thus aLaw (US) and mu-Law (outside the US, a.k.a. "uLaw", since the Greek mu looks like a u with a tail) are typically 8000 Hz sample rate, 8-bit-sample, monophonic (who has a stereo telephone?) signal when digitized.
The GP was worried that the bit depth is "coarse". This is not the case. Bit depth "distance" is constant for a given depth.
CD's are 44.1kHz, 16-bit, stereo. Always. So there are always 44100 samples per second per channel. There are always two channels (stereo, one left, one right). And each sample in each channel is always 16 bits. A 16-bit integer can represent numbers from 0-65535 (2^0-1 through 2^16-1), and since there's no need for negative numbers (this is Pulse Code Modulation, or PCM, so no, you don't need to represent a +/- of a waveform) you get the full 0-65535 swing. From there, the value is directly translatable into a DC voltage that goes to the speakers. (Most of the heavy lifting is done in the A/D phase, D/A phase is a simple value-to-DC conversion.) The change in DC voltage over time is what causes the magnets to move, which moves the speaker cones, which moves air, which moves your tympanic membrane, which blah-blah-blah... eventually you hear sound.
So there's no need to worry. Nothing gets coarse. Nothing loses fidelity. Nothing loses audible quality. This is why vinyl fanatics get laughed at by people who know how and why digital audio works. The limits of even now-mundane CD audio are far above the possible limits of even hypothetically perfect human hearing. Nobody can hear 22kHz. Nothing below 22kHz is misrepresented in CD-quality audio. For mastering work, where effects will be applied later, higher quality recordings are wonderful, since you can guarantee that it will stay high-quality when downsampled to CD-quality, but other than that (and "economies of scale" where better parts are just as cheap to produce), there's no need for anything better.
here is an illustration
------ hi mom