Audio Interface frequency range. what difference?
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  1. #1

    Default Audio Interface frequency range. what difference?

    greeting fellow digital djs!
    i'm an avid reader of this blog/forum and this is indeed an awesome community! thank you for all the suggestions, tips and tricks being shared here. i have been on the dj scene a long time but i haven't really been so technically inclined to the details behind audio tech. now im interested to learn the technicalities of audio.

    my question is, what does the Frequency Range of an audio interface do to the sound? what difference do they really make?

    i have 3 audio interfaces that i own and have compared. these are the Echo Audiofire2, Presonus Firebox and NI Audio 8 DJ. on paper, the audiofire2 has an FR of 10hz-20khz, the firebox has 10hz-50khz, and the audio 8 dj has 10hz-40khz.

    based on how i have used them for the past year on DJ gigs and home use, they naturally sound about the same when outputting 320k mp3 tracks from beatport and traxsource using traktor pro. they all sound very well and clear. minor differences like the firebox louder than the audiofire2.

    please share your knowledge to enlighten me. hehehe.

    thank you.

  2. #2
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    In theory having a wider range should give you a slightly more detailed and "opened" top end (that's the prob... this is very slightly, i.e. you'd need a proper listening room with absolutely top notch Studio Monitors to spot the difference)... Don't think 40 Khz to 50Khz would make a difference at this stage.
    On top of that an MP3 will never give you that sort of detail anyway.

    Most people above 10 years of age will have already lost a lot os sensibility to anything above 17Khz, and keep losing thru the years as they grow... human limit is 20khz (theory commonly accepted).

    It's all to do with something called side-bands (alias) and the filters needed to "hide or eliminate" those in digital recordings, which remove lots of the ultra-sonic content and this in return produces a less opened and natural sound...

    Again this a bit geeky and for Djing / most humans 20-20khz should do just fine.

    Z

  3. #3

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    hey

    yeah just as said the generally accepted human ear frequency range is 20hz to 20Khz (20,000hz) but in reality your sensitivity to high frequencies decreases with age, so no human can realistically hear even that, more like 30 or 40 Hz up to maybe 16 or 17Khz.

    There are some arguments as to whether, even though you can't hear frequencies above this, that you can still somehow perceive them and that your brain would subtly notice that they were missing, but to be honest jury's out

    The main thing to remember but is that while your sound card may be able to work up way past 20Khz, and even your mixer and amps as well, the speakers are always the weak link. Studio monitor type speakers will fair a bit better for in your house/bedroom, but for the type of PA speakers you'll hopefully be giging on, a decent set may play up around 16Hz well (no matter what the usually 'massaged' stats say) and very good set up as much as 18KHz well and only top of the line, world class PA systems will get up to 20Khz with any decent volume never mind higher than this.

    k

  4. #4
    Tech Guru charo's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kevinmcdonough View Post
    There are some arguments as to whether, even though you can't hear frequencies above this, that you can still somehow perceive them and that your brain would subtly notice that they were missing, but to be honest jury's out

    k
    i think the jury has been in for a while on this

    sounds in the freq beyond our hearing still affects our perception of the total sound.

    i think that this is more important to a producer/remixer then a dj using 320 mp3s (which are compressed by removing parts we supposedly can't hear.)
    We don't believe in the star system. We want the focus to be on the music. If we have to create an image, it must be an artificial image. That combination hides our physicality and also shows our view of the star system. It is not a compromise-daftpunk

  5. #5
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    M8 U have to listen to a good FUNKTION-ONE PA .... Massive if I ever hear quality in a club or event this is the sh** I would say these are the best PA for real dynamic/ frequency Range!

    Z

  6. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by charo View Post
    i think the jury has been in for a while on this

    sounds in the freq beyond our hearing still affects our perception of the total sound.

    i think that this is more important to a producer/remixer then a dj using 320 mp3s (which are compressed by removing parts we supposedly can't hear.)
    LOL, my personal opinion is that I agree with you but was just stating what the more generally held arguments are over the sound engineering and DJing world in general.

    What you have to remember is that, even forgetting MP3's, on full CD quality the sampling rate of 41kHz limits the frequencies to just a shade above 20Khz due to Nyquists theorm. And even if you have properly mastered vinyl or super-audio CD or something similar which could conceivably have some info above 20Khz, and even if that info makes it through the soundcard, mixer, processing and amps, it STILL isn't there because the speaker cant reproduce it to get it into the air for your ear to hear.

    Only in a proper professional recording studio with top of the line large format monitors costing many thousands could you reliably state that sound above 20Khz may even have a chance of making it into the air for your ears to pick up. Soon as you step out of that room and into the real world its gone.

    And note here i'm talking about sound that is reproduced through speakers, be it pre-recorded or mic'd up bands and acoustic instruments. When your hearing an actual instrument raw then obviously your not limited by all the electronic and mechanical gubbins we use to play our sound back to a large audience so your getting a fair bit of sound and harmonics above 20Khz then.

    And yeah, Funktion One are great speakers, had the pleasure of mixing on them a couple of times in my live engineer life working with bands, right up there with the top designs in the world (when in the hands of a good engineer, F1 being one of the few top level companies left who try to make great sounding speakers at the component level and not try and rely on too much DSP for correction, are particularly susceptible to bad engineers footering too much and ruining a great sound).

    However even Tony, who is one of the good guys when it comes to publishing honest measurements about his speakers and not trying to pump the numbers to make them look better on paper, only claims up to 18Khz for both his top of the line touring product the Res5 and also the Dance Stack which is what you'll most commonly hear in club installs.

    k

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    Tech Guru charo's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kevinmcdonough View Post
    LOL, my personal opinion is that I agree with you but was just stating what the more generally held arguments are over the sound engineering and DJing world in general.

    What you have to remember is that, even forgetting MP3's, on full CD quality the sampling rate of 41kHz limits the frequencies to just a shade above 20Khz due to Nyquists theorm. And even if you have properly mastered vinyl or super-audio CD or something similar which could conceivably have some info above 20Khz, and even if that info makes it through the soundcard, mixer, processing and amps, it STILL isn't there because the speaker cant reproduce it to get it into the air for your ear to hear.

    Only in a proper professional recording studio with top of the line large format monitors costing many thousands could you reliably state that sound above 20Khz may even have a chance of making it into the air for your ears to pick up. Soon as you step out of that room and into the real world its gone.

    And note here i'm talking about sound that is reproduced through speakers, be it pre-recorded or mic'd up bands and acoustic instruments. When your hearing an actual instrument raw then obviously your not limited by all the electronic and mechanical gubbins we use to play our sound back to a large audience so your getting a fair bit of sound and harmonics above 20Khz then.

    And yeah, Funktion One are great speakers, had the pleasure of mixing on them a couple of times in my live engineer life working with bands, right up there with the top designs in the world (when in the hands of a good engineer, F1 being one of the few top level companies left who try to make great sounding speakers at the component level and not try and rely on too much DSP for correction, are particularly susceptible to bad engineers footering too much and ruining a great sound).

    However even Tony, who is one of the good guys when it comes to publishing honest measurements about his speakers and not trying to pump the numbers to make them look better on paper, only claims up to 18Khz for both his top of the line touring product the Res5 and also the Dance Stack which is what you'll most commonly hear in club installs.

    k
    great post kevin.

    have you ever wondered what our music sounds like to dogs?

  8. #8

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    LOL,

    yeah would be interesting to hear what drums sound like to a dog, with all that high pitched cymbal content, or perhaps a string quartet

    And yeah, it is a pity also that with all our revolutionary technology and electronics and computer processing the weak link in the chain is still the most important part, the speaker. For all the improvements we have made to it over the years in terms of frequency production and power handling, its still based on a moving coil of metal inside a magnet and has been for decades

    That's the next project for anyone who wants to get rich quick. Develop a brand new technology that can turn electrical signals into pressure waves to replace a standard speaker cone, be efficient and handle lots of power and have a big accurate frequency range, and also be cheap enough to mass manufacture. Not a lot to ask, is it?

    (lol either that, or solve the problem of easy and cheap mass transportation and storage of hydrogen, the only thing really holding the hydrogen based car back. LOL who ever cracks THAT will leave Doland Trump and Bill Gates for dust! )


    k

  9. #9
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    this a bit shaky ground for me but as converters get better and we have more storage space it's possible to move into 256 KHz plus sample rate, and as far as I know (and I could be wrong here) at that rate there's no prob with side bands or necessity for anti-alias filters.
    Some "affordable" studio monitors do get to 30khz and some times more now... maybe by combining both we can in a not to distant future perceive something higher that 18Khz, still all this fuss and I think, that at the most, u'll feel the music just sound more organic ... at regular listening conditions all this is just not noticeable at all.

    It's funny how so many people swear by they're HD pro tools rig lol maybe they should be swearing at it!! :P

    What I mean about Funktion on was more about the detail (mainly bass with that massive infra-bass speaker)!! )

    Z

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