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Who knows the highest frequency in Hz needed?

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scottherbert

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Who knows the highest frequency in Hz needed?

PostThu Sep 14, 2017 2:39 pm

Who knows the highest frequency in Hertz needed to reproduce the highest pitch of ANY pipe? I have a discussion on an audio forum where a fellow has a chart and claims that "...no instrument goes higher than 5200Hz! The highest note on a Hammond organ is 5200 Hz!"

I know pipes go higher, the harmonics alone go beyond audibility to sound right. But do any of you have a number I can quote?

Thanks,
~S
"Life is just a dream, it is in death that we truly awaken!"
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murph

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Re: Who knows the highest frequency in Hz needed?

PostThu Sep 14, 2017 2:56 pm

I'd have to look it up, but I think the top c on a 1' stop, which is usually as high as things go without breaks, is something like 16k
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1961TC4ME

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Re: Who knows the highest frequency in Hz needed?

PostThu Sep 14, 2017 3:10 pm

murph wrote:I'd have to look it up, but I think the top c on a 1' stop, which is usually as high as things go without breaks, is something like 16k


I was looking up some info awhile back on this when contemplating a speaker build and what type of components to consider using. As I recall 16kHz was the very top end of the scale for a pipe organ.

Yep, here's what I found at the time, scroll down to the chart >>> http://www.dak.com/reviews/tutorial_frequencies.cfm

Marc
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josq

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Re: Who knows the highest frequency in Hz needed?

PostThu Sep 14, 2017 3:40 pm

The human ear detects frequencies up to 20Hz. These frequencies are easily present as harmonics in high-pitched organ stops. Another practical limit is that most soundcards and most Hauptwerk samples use 48Hz sample frequency. Frequencies above half of this value (24Hz) cannot be accurately represented, resulting in so called "aliasing".

So I would say: go up to 20Hz, any decent speaker can do that. But it makes no sense to go much above this value, because you cannot hear it and if you could, you would hear artifacts.
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engrssc

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Re: Who knows the highest frequency in Hz needed?

PostThu Sep 14, 2017 4:27 pm

josq wrote:So I would say: go up to 20Hz, any decent speaker can do that. But it makes no sense to go much above this value, because you cannot hear it.


Some animals (our dog) can so can mice. :roll:

Rgds,
Ed
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organtechnology

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Re: Who knows the highest frequency in Hz needed?

PostThu Sep 14, 2017 4:40 pm

You must mean 20 kilo Hertz (20,000 Hz) because a sub-woofer can go above 20Hz.

engrssc wrote:
josq wrote:So I would say: go up to 20Hz, any decent speaker can do that. But it makes no sense to go much above this value, because you cannot hear it.


Some animals (our dog) can so can mice. :roll:

Rgds,
Ed
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engrssc

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Re: Who knows the highest frequency in Hz needed?

PostThu Sep 14, 2017 4:49 pm

So right. Pays to read what I quote, right?v :oops:

Rgds,
Ed
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scottherbert

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Re: Who knows the highest frequency in Hz needed?

PostThu Sep 14, 2017 5:07 pm

Many thanks for the usable numbers gents! I still believe that, even though we may not be able to hear those super sonic harmonics, they still shape the timbre of the sound we do hear! And josq, in reference to Arti Facts, I think I went to high school with him. :lol:

~S
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organtechnology

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Re: Who knows the highest frequency in Hz needed?

PostThu Sep 14, 2017 5:18 pm

These upper limits get quite complicated and not just because of human hearing variations and speaker capability but even theDigital to Analog process itself comes into play.

Because of something called the Nyquist Theorem (sp?) the highest frequency which can be sampled is 1/2 the sample rate. So in a 44,100 Hz sample rate the highest frequency to be expected on playback is 22,050 Hz. That frequency and all the others around it will have very few sample points through which to draw the curve. But since it is above 20kHz it is considered adequate. The next most common sample rate is 48kHz and the 1/2 frequency is 24kHz. Certainly high enough for most people and too high for me due to aging and injury.

Building an audio system which can produce frequencies above the Nyquist limit can result in lots of power being wasted in frequencies which cannot/shouldnot be heard and the interaction among these can result in frequencies you wish you had not heard. A rare case of when more may not be better.

YMMV,

Thomas
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engrssc

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Re: Who knows the highest frequency in Hz needed?

PostThu Sep 14, 2017 9:11 pm

Thanks for the thoughts, Thomas. Brings back memories of college lecture halls.

Rgds,
Ed
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organtechnology

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Re: Who knows the highest frequency in Hz needed?

PostThu Sep 14, 2017 10:18 pm

engrssc wrote:Thanks for the thoughts, Thomas. Brings back memories of college lecture halls.

Rgds,
Ed


Why is that Ed? Put you to sleep?
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organsRgreat

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Re: Who knows the highest frequency in Hz needed?

PostFri Sep 15, 2017 3:33 am

One company makes supertweeters which go up to 90 kHz – see the review here:

http://www.the-ear.net/review-hardware/ ... ertweeters

Whilst the highest frequencies on CD are limited by technical considerations, other digital formats such as SACD could go higher, though practical considerations limit the top end.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Audio_CD

Even portable recorders can now sample at 96 kHz, which means a top frequency of 48 kHz. Theoretically analogue systems such as vinyl can go higher than CD.

I doubt that supertweeters would be useful in a Hauptwerk system, as the sampling frequency for most sample sets is 48 kHz. I would expect more benefit to come from additional speaker channels – to minimise intermodulation distortion and keep “pipes” as independent as possible.
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josq

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Re: Who knows the highest frequency in Hz needed?

PostFri Sep 15, 2017 1:32 pm

organtechnology wrote:You must mean 20 kilo Hertz (20,000 Hz) because a sub-woofer can go above 20Hz.


Yes, mistake!

I was wondering what those supertweeters do... "accurately revealing high frequency detail above 6kHz. " (http://www.townshendaudio.com/supertweeters/). So my guess is that they work because they give more detail in the range between 6 and 20 (or 24, if you like) kHz, and that it does not matter that they also can handle even higher frequencies.
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csw900

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Re: Who knows the highest frequency in Hz needed?

PostSun Sep 17, 2017 1:13 pm

Hi Tweeters

I suspect the supertweeters would be most useful for entertaining the local bat population!

Even when I was young I could never hear 20KHz, now my hearing does not go above 10KHz.

It is really bad practice to try and reproduce frequencies above half the sample rate, most
of what you will additionally hear is intermodulation distortion. The proper way to get the
best sound is to use a FILTER which positively eliminates these unwanted by products
of the digital sampling process.

csw900
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Organorak

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Re: Who knows the highest frequency in Hz needed?

PostTue Sep 19, 2017 2:49 pm

Oh please, not another excuse to increase the hardware demands of my system! The next thing is there will be an announcement that some organ has been resampled in glorious multiphonic 200kHz audio and we'll have to go out and buy new soundcards and quadruple our RAM to accomodate the extra definition!

Joking aside, how many people would actually be able to tell the difference between a sample set recorded and played through a system at say 96kHz and one that was recorded at 48kHz (obviously you would have to use the same PC and speakers both times, but in the second time filter out any frequencies higher than 24kHz). And if you could hear a difference, what would you hear that's different between the two samples?
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