Hi Mick,

The value of 192kHz is two-fold, for me:

a) As a tool for "slowing" down a recording for a special effect.

b) For archival, practical, historical and scientific purposes.

    To point A: Sound manipulation and "slow down" is a vital and oft used tool for those of us in post. We are finding that the added hi-frequency and transient response as well as the "clarity" of sound in a 192kHz recording yields superior results when a file is manipulated to achieve a "special effect". Gunshots, explosions, human voice, factory sounds, you name it, they sound better, more articulate and retain more high frequency content (the loss of which is a dead give-away when a sound has been slowed down at traditional sample rates) than their lower sample rate brethren. When using wide frequency response microphones like the Earthworks QTC50 or Schoeps CMC 6S, one is capable of capturing audio beyond the range of hearing that, when slowed down, is reintroduced into the hearing range that might otherwise have been lost. This can add a sparkle and clarity to a manipulated sound that it would never have otherwise had.

    The current project I am on requires a great deal of voice recording and manipulation to make the actor sound "huge". Slowing down the recording is a vital part of that process. I am getting meaningful results shooting (direct to ProTools) these voices and manipulating them on the spot. I can hear a difference with 192kHz recording as my entire day is spent with a predominantly 48kHz library. I am constantly loading 48kHz sounds from my library and 192kHz field recordings into a 192kHz ProTools session and comparing them as I work. This is not a scientific A/B/X comparison, to be sure, but I hear a qualitative difference. As for software, I am using ProTools Native and HD192 hardware interface. I am sure there are many other even higher fidelity converters. I have not, yet, compared ProTools and it's various plugins working at 48kHz vs 192kHz. I am assuming that, at higher sample rates, these tools are working on a higher order of granularity and, thus, can do a better job at what they have been chosen to do strictly from a processing point of view. Further, I often need to "fix" music with that isn't "synching". Either the playback operator hadn't done his homework or the editor imported the file incorrectly, who knows.  It is sometimes a simple matter of re-sampling the analogue source (studio master tape) at 192kHz and time compressing or expanding the material to fit a given edit. These tools work better at higher sample rates, I think, for obvious reasons.

    To point B: I learned decades ago that recording beyond the ability of current technology has historical, archival and practical benefits. As a sound "designer" for motion pictures, I live and die by the quality of my library. While I strive to record as much fresh and new material every project I can, I can't record it all and must rely on past works and, sometimes, I only get one shot at recording a rare or one-off sound event (Like living on an aircraft carrier during air-ops). When I started in Post, Nagra had just introduced the 4S. Very few in my field saw it as an opportunity to upgrade their tired old 35mm MONO mag libraries. I chose to shoot everything stereo, 15ips, on the best tape possible, with no rolloff or limiting. Those sounds still serve me well today, 40 years later. I believe par of my success in my field is my insistence on the highest quality recordings I can get. It is advances like this in post that, in part, drove the cinema "revolution" in sound that saw the advent of Dolby stereo, 6track magnetic roadshow prints in 70mm etc. As Hollywood delivered higher and higher quality products, the cinemas had to keep pace and deliver the goods in exhibition. I don't know which drove which but I am convinced that in insisting on the highest quality source material, good things in audio consumption came of it. Moving into the future, the DCI contains the capability to playback audio in a cinema at 96kHz. While I haven't seen anyone release a film that way, I expect it to happen in the next decade.

    I believe that there are scientific, historical and archival reasons to capture our world in sound at the highest fidelity possible. As we drive the bar higher professionally, the trickle down effect has important consequences in the real world for law-enforcement and scientific analysis. I have had sounds in my library used for reference for both of these purposes and can attest to the intrinsic value of having sounds recorded just the best they can be. I have also been asked to analyze poor audio quality recordings for law-enforcement and for scientific purposes and wished to have been given higher quality samples with which to work to allow analysis tools more spectrum to crunch on. Much like the trickle down that occurs from the racing divisions of the automobile companies to their consumer divisions, I see a similar need for us "pros" to insist an ever increasing levels of accuracy and fidelity to drive a consumer market in the image of what an audiophile would be proud. I'm not a fan of MP3's and iPods but accept them as useful tools. If my insistence in using higher fidelity recording techniques helps create even the smallest awareness of the need for good sound, then it will have been worthwhile.

    Can you imagine what more we might know if Zapruder had filmed Kennedy in 16 or 35mm? I think there are important historical implications to recording our world as true and and accurately as possible. As a sound collectors and gatherers, we sound fx folk are documenting an age and an era on a daily basis in ways no one else is. Our passion and, possibly, our unspoken goal is to have one of everything that ever made sound. An unachievable goal, but that doesn't' slake our thirst for recording it all. Why not get it as good as we can? Who knows how those recordings will be used.

    From a practical standpoint, I am getting requests from clients to record raw at 192kHz. Again, we can argue about whether or not anyone can really hear the difference but someone is, and that someone is paying for it. If I can deliver 192khz, I get the gig, if I can't, I don't get the gig. I have had many a go-rounds in this forum with users who don't understand why anyone would want 192kHz sample rates and go on about Nyquist Frequencies, double blind hearing tests etc. Even if I agreed with these argument (and I don't) it comes down to economics, at a minimum and I want my recorder of choice, Sound Devices, to give me those capabilities.

Can I get an amen?