In reply to:
Music works the same way, the less the compression, the more accurate to the original recording the digital product is likely to be.
Well, not even the compression - to take the analogy further, the compression (MP3, etc) is like having a JPG of Starry Night.
Sample rate and number of levels (bits) are more the issue here... the Nyquist limit says effective high frequency is half sample rate... 44100 samples per sec for CDs - nominally 22.05KHz, but that's really a bit misleading. A 22KHz sample will not be lost and will not "beat" or "flutter" if at least two samples are taken each spike, but it hardly approximates the waveform.
Take the samples below:
^12000 Hz sine wave sampled at 16 bit, 44.1 kilosamples per sec ^
^12000 Hz sine wave sampled at 16 bit, 132.3 kilosamples (3x CD) per sec ^
Which more closely approximates the original sine wave?
Bren R.
