Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!nntp.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Tim Rentsch Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Random/OT: Low sample rate audio weirdness/mystery Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2026 03:31:19 -0800 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 36 Message-ID: <86bjillw8o.fsf@linuxsc.com> References: <109h2c1$2vkis$1@dont-email.me> <20250906205251.00002067@yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Injection-Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2026 11:31:25 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="4410c5efb3d914e09b037052d23abd66"; logging-data="3103953"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX19Sj9Z5vjNMl5OUoxRjJn1eJprTIhmLbK0=" User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.4 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:ddLNzL78Xza09OF1Ypo2HsD2mPI= sha1:KcubO8pViMbzWFzrjC0Yld+zmA4= Xref: csiph.com comp.arch:114750 Michael S writes: > On Sat, 6 Sep 2025 05:28:16 -0500 > BGB wrote: > >> Just randomly thinking again about some things I noticed with audio >> at low sample rates. >> >> For baseline, can note, basic sample rates: >> 44100: Standard, sounds good, but bulky >> 32000: Sounds good >> 22050: Moderate >> 16000: OK, Modest size, acceptable quality. >> Seems like best tradeoff if not going for high quality. >> 11025: Poor, muffled. >> 8000: Very poor, speech almost unintelligible (normally). >> But, it is seeming like a "weird hack" may exist here. > > 8000 x 8bit (mu-law in USA, A-law in majority of the world) was a > standard sampling rate for digital back ends of analog wired telephony > for more than 50 years. I didn't check, but would assume that it still > is. > Most people founded it quite intelligible. Yes but bit rate isn't the whole story. First the measure is not "good sound" but only "understandable sound". Second telephony does frequency filtering in a very different way than digital audio does. Voices on phones are recognizable but still easily differentiable from the original. Music played via phone-quality audio sounds terrible. > Certainly more intelligible > than cellular telephony, until less then 20 years ago cellular improved > a little. Cell phone audio... even today, ick, double ick, and triple ick.