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thanks for the list, I check a few out. I see most of these are still only 96 kHz. Is there a reason why more companies aren't going up to 192 kHz yet?

Processing power is a lot more costly than you can believe.

As Max alludes to, 192K is very resource intensive and that kind of processing requirement for any kind multi-channle digital audio device is much harder to achieve than you might think even with today's technology. In addition,any pro desk that can do 192K is likely to be way out of yours or anybody elses price range.

I think the point here is that any recording that is seriously worth doing at 192K is going to be done direct to disk and not go through a live mixer. Any necessary mixing is then done during post-production in the box.

You have to consider carefully what sort of recordings would need both 192KHz and a mixing console. Maybe headlining that combination is a way of getting certain types of client into the studio, but I'm not sure I'd want to work with anyone who came in solely for that reason.

Think about this one...

http://www.blackbirdstudio.com/

John can, and DOES have, probably THE finest and most comprehensive recording studio on the planet.

Check out how many 192k consoles he has.

It has been proven over and over and over again that 96 kHz is about as high as anyone needs to go for the "ultimate quality" and that anything higher is just marketing hype.

But you should do what you want since it is your money.

I had mastering client recently that wanted to do some mastering at 192/64 bit. I don't have the equipment to do that so I suggested NY or LA for his needs. He brought his stuff around for me to listen to before he sent it off and with all honestly 44.1/16 bit would have done him just fine. All of his songs were recorded as bricks and there was no white space on the waveform. Why do you need a dynamic range of over 384 dBFS when there is no dynamic range? Why do you need frequenicies out in the ultrasonic range when you are recording instruments that the fundementals don't go out to 10 Khz and overtones that don't go above 18 KHz? I am all for quality and if you are recording classical or pipe organ then the extra bandwidth and S/N ratio would be great. But for strait ahead brick wall recording IMHO it is overkill.

thanks everyone for the insight! it sounds like for what I'm recording I won't be utilizing 192 kHz and should stay with 96 kHz (my wallet doesn't mind!)

Another quick question: I've also heard that when recording for CD output, the algorithms from 88.2 to 44.1 kHz is much less intensive than 96 down to 44.1 kHz. Obviously it's easy to see why someone would say that, but if my DAW can handle the math, is there any reason I should consider 88.2 kHz?

If you can, do 176.4khz :P

I haven't been able to record at 88.2, but I will not record at 48 because of how it sounds when down sampled. However, I will record at 48 if that's as high as I can go and I intend for it to be mastered. The 48khz signal when played back into a quality mastering chain and re-sampled to 44.1 after EQ and other wizardry done in the analog domain, sounds better. Or should. I make things up as I go along.

Where were you reading about the algorithms for down sampling? MWFFTs? Moving window fast Fourier transforms? "Shannons theorem"? Link me up.

actually i was just talking to a few other engineers about sample rates when I was questioning why more digital consoles (or I guess "controllers") didn't go up to 192 kHz. but the shannon-hartely theorem is on wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theorem

That page reads like a text book. So dry. :P

Greener wrote: That page reads like a text book. So dry. :P

You say that like it's a bad thing.

It was at that time of night. ;)
And is at this time...