44.1 kHz on the way out

[Bevo]

48 khz sample rate - why 44,1 khz will soon be out

There’s a few typos in this, from a German source

Apple has now announced that the HD format "Master for iTunes“Is no longer to be supplied exclusively in 44,1 kHz sample rate, but can now also be supplied with up to 96 kHz sample rate.
By default, Apple now delivers audio streaming in 48 kHz sample rate.
Services such as Spotify and Amazon Music also save tracks with higher sample rates by default.

So it is only a matter of time before the other providers will deliver in 48 kHz as standard in the future.

Quote from Bob Katz:

Apple will losslessly stream it at 96k, and they will downsample it to 48k and lossy encode it and stream that at 48k for their lossy service. So Apple’s lossy stream gets a serious upgrade, as AAC at 48k sounds significantly better than at 44.1k.

[drumphil]

@Bevo

as AAC at 48k sounds significantly better than at 44.1k.

I find that a little hard to believe. Most encoders throw out anything above 19K or 20K, in order to devote more bitrate to the parts of the frequency spectrum that matter more to how we perceive audio quality.

[brainio]

@drumphil

I find that a little hard to believe. Most encoders throw out anything above 19K or 20K, in order to devote more bitrate to the parts of the frequency spectrum that matter more to how we perceive audio quality.

I doubt it too. I would like to know what the listening context is for that.