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24/96

Subject: 24/96
From: "kaernbach" <>
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 06:21:08 -0000
Dear list,

I am new to this list, and probably won't be long on this list, once
I have bought my equipment. I hope you won't mind my selfish
information sucking attitude.

I am not a "naturerecordist". I am an experimental psychologist,
focussing on hearing. I do most of my research with lab sounds
(sinusoids, white noise, and the like... see http://periodic-noise.de
for a typical project of mine). However, sometimes I need ecological
sounds.

My present project is on ugly sounds. Sounds that make you goose
pimples. Finger nails on the blackboard, cutting styrofoam, etc.  We
want to have good samples of such sounds before we start looking into
the stimulus properties that make them this ugly.

My present question is on a cheap solution to record uncompressed 24
bit 96 kHz sounds. Why these specifications?
  *  96 kHz because it is supposed that high frequencies play an
important part in generating these goose pimples. High levels of near
ultrasound might contribute to the effect.
  *  24 bits because that would make things easier. One would not
need to adjust the gain control very varefully in order to have a
16-bit version that makes use of the full dynamic range. Also, with
equal SPL high frequencies have much less amplitude. In order to
capture them with some precision, 24 bits would be good.
  *  uncompressed because we just don't know whether a compression
algorithm (e.g. ATRAC) would change anything of importance to those
sounds. While one might not be able to tell the difference between
compressed and uncompressed bird songs, music, speech, ... it might
just make the difference between a GPS (goose pimple sound) and other
sounds.

I have studied the offer of Raimund Specht,
     http://www.ultrasoundgate.com/usg124.htm
which comes to 2552 EURO (#31242 + #10212, incl. 16% VAT). O.k., it
would be nice to have a hand-held device like that (and even nicer if
it had some own recording technology, say solid state). But let's
suppose I had much less funding available, say 500 EUR or so. Is
there any solution that would allow to do uncompressed 24/96
recordings at this price? It needs not to be a handheld solution,
though laptop-based would be nice.

[Well, I am aware that the next thing to consider would be the
microphone. I have a nice one here, I'll have to look up its
specifications, but I suppose that an appropriate microphone would
not cost thousands of USD/EUR.]

Thank you in advance,
and best regards,
Christian



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