The "tone" of this thread took a wild turn for the worse IMO, which actually concerns me more than the topic itself (which Drew summarized well).

Jeff Evans
Good point, I checked. In stand alone mode both of these plugins have the option to set the sample rate to 96 K. Once you do this though the session sample rate will be asked to change over to match.
 
When running as VST's inside a host program such as Studio One it seems the sample rate is locked to the host session and cannot be changed.  If you create a seesion at 96KHz though the sameple rate inside the plugin switches accordingly.
 

In Reaktor you can oversample up to 4x in the VST by clicking the little down arrow next to the magnifying glass (at the top) and choose settings:

 
If they are grayed out, I think you can do it if you change to edit mode or something.

Thanks jps very much for the Harbal analysis.  I appreciate it.  Interesting the high end is obviously what it is but your curves also point out some serious differences in the mids and even the low end too.  No wonder the rendered version sounds so different.
 
Mccue's statement is a bit silly.  Nothing crappy about 'Prism' or 'Wavestation'  (or Z3ta in fact)  And what if as a composer I really want to use a certain VST for its sound but it did not happen to have an upsampling option built in.  But at 96K it sounds way different.  'Prism' is a very different animal and many don't even understand it completely.  Myself included in that.
 
Part of the problem is the type of music and how it is made.  A lot of people would never make music such as I have done in 'Prism' for example.  They think a DAW's job is confined to producing music recording everything live in through a sound card.  A situation which I agree at both sample rates seems to produce very similar results but not so when I am doing something a bit different with a virtual instrument such as 'Prism'.  And it being totally digital too.  Think outside the box.
 
Drew I cannot seem to be able to put 'Prism' into a high sample rate while the session remains at 44.1K. I may have to dig deeper but when I click on the arrow all the options are greyed out.  The one that is ticked is the match host rate option. (I am running the Reaktor player though with the full version of Prism. It may have something to do with that too.)
 
The facts are very  clear. 'Prism' sounds much better at 96K.  Thanks to Craig again for pointing that out.  As I am someone who relies a lot on virtual instruments at times I feel the need to re approach a newer setup at least having the option of running at 96K if I want it to. Before this I may not have considered that so much but now I am.
 
Yesterday I did another experiement using Prism (only) and choosing a combination of a delicate percussion Gamelan patch with some very ambient detailed intricate high end harmonic patches too and the differences were even more pronounced than the experiemnts I have posted. 
 
I got a slightly different response this time. The 96K version had some slightly clearer and taller transients on the Gamelan sound compared to a slightly duller and not so transient hits in the 44.1K version. (Gamelan only though) Some of the ambient sounds in the background (on the 96K version) were a still little smoother and less strident. Just goes to show results are not always the same but what was the same though is the 96K version still sounded different and overall better.
 
Interesting.  I think 'Prism' must be one of those synths that is just pushing the 44.1K boundaries very hard.  I am sure there are VST's that don't but if I want to use 'Prism' then I should be able to and I want and need to get the best possible sound from it.
 

Craig, thanks for these informative threads, including the work you do for SOS, I always learn something. You mentioned Amp3 several time, so here is my simple question. Do I get just as good of tone by using Amp3 on the Hi Res setting and recording to 44.1 or will it even be better setting the DAW to 96?

Jeff Evans
Drew I cannot seem to be able to put 'Prism' into a high sample rate while the session remains at 44.1K. I may have to dig deeper but when I click on the arrow all the options are greyed out. The one that is ticked is the match host rate option. (I am running the Reaktor player though with the full version of Prism. It may have something to do with that too.)

It's funny. I have the full Reaktor (not the Player) and it allows me to change it but I seem to recall having this problem with things being grayed out in the past (I have an ensemble I created that can alias like crazy with some settings), but there was a way to make it work.
 
Do you have the latest and greatest version of Player? It would be a shame if the Reaktor Player didn't let you adjust the sample rate when running as a VST. Maybe someone else here can confirm this behavior with either Reaktor or Reaktor Player?

MakeShift
Craig, thanks for these informative threads, including the work you do for SOS, I always learn something. You mentioned Amp3 several time, so here is my simple question. Do I get just as good of tone by using Amp3 on the Hi Res setting and recording to 44.1 or will it even be better setting the DAW to 96?

As far as I'm concerned, running AmpliTube 3 at 96kHz produces no audible improvement compared to using the HI mode at 44.1kHz. And according to IK, it will be more efficient at 44.1kHz.

gswitz
 
On a different note, I'm not sure that bringing up qualifications helps the conversation... saying the Jeff is Pro (suggesting that Bit isn't as qualified at least in part because he's challenging your assertions).
 

 
I'm never suggested Bit isn't as qualified. Take what I say at face value, which was that Jeff is a pro - it's not just me saying that there's a difference. He hears what I hear too, and he's not some crazy person selling cables for $3,000 a foot (and I'm NOT implying Bit sells cables at $3,000 a foot, either)...
 

I like the topic and I like how everyone has conversed on it. I want to speak up and say I also like Bit and how he's presented his knowledge. I don't think anything you or Jeff has contributed invalidates Bits challenges. They are reasonable challenges. Same with DrewFX. That dude's freakin smart too.

 
I will admit it is frustrating to have to repeat once more that I've said oversampling is a solution. Bit's saying that too, so there's no argument there. His challenges are reasonable, but he is shooting the messenger. Those challenges need to be addressed to the coders who for whatever reason have created an issue, not to the musicians who have found a practical solution that can be implemented today.
 
I've stated that oversampling-capable processors running at 44.1kHz produce results that, to me, sound equivalent to running at 96kHz. I've also said that sample rate converting something recorded at 96kHz to 44.1kHz preserves any benefit from recording at 96kHz, so I'm not saying it has anything to do with hearing anything above the audible range.
 
I honestly don't know how I can state it any more clearly than that.
 
My disagreement with Bit is his saying that when it comes to recording at 96kHz, "nobody's come up with a rationale that's supported by science" as if I'm just pulling some cork-sniffing crackpot theory out of the air. That, and what appeared to be a condescending comment about whether there would be any "real" engineers on the panel, did not sit well. I have not belittled anyone's knowledge, accused anyone of propagating misinformation, painted broad strokes about "crappy" products, or claimed to have superior knowledge. I heard what I heard, was very much surprised at what I heard, wanted to know why, and found a reason for what I heard that's supported by science. All that means is a) I have ears, and b) I know how to do research. Nothing more, nothing less.
 
The science definitely supports the concept that signals above the Nyquist frequency can interfere with a clock and cause undesirable artifacts. There really is no dispute about that. Anyone is welcome to challenge that, but they would have to come up with extremely compelling arguments to show that current scientific thinking about the relationship among sampling rates, clock frequencies, aliasing, and undesirable/audible artifacts is wrong.
 

I wouldn't want Bit to feel quelled b/c some one is being more successful in the industry than he is (or not, idk).

 
I don't want him to feel quelled. I am always willing to stand corrected when appropriate, but I do not think it's appropriate to dismiss hours of work, testing, and research as having no scientific basis. I don't make stuff up; I have yet to see anything presented here that negates what I heard, or the reasons given for why I heard it. However...
 

...I may very well have to admit I'm wrong about whether or not frequencies above 20kHz matter to the listener. At the panel discussion today, there was spectral analysis of music that showed it contained significant energy up to about 50kHz.
 
This was a prelude to multiple studies that have been conducted regarding perception of ultrasonic frequencies in humans. There has actually been a lot of research done in this field, with the hopes of coming up with an alternative to cochlear implants (e.g., search on "Imaizumi2001"). But the study of greatest interest to me involved measuring EEGs of subjects listening to sounds in the range of 20-20kHz, 20kHz-100kHz, and both together.
 
If they listened only to the ultrasonic sound or to no sound, certain areas of the brain didn't respond. If they listened to sounds in the "audible" range, those parts of the brain responded as expected to the stimuli. However, the activity within that same part of the brain increased significantly when the ultrasonic frequencies were also reproduced along with the usual audible frequency range.
 
Furthermore, for whatever reason there was a lag time of about 30 seconds before the increased brainwave activity occurred in the presence of the higher frequencies, and another 30 seconds before the activity ceased once the higher frequencies were filtered out. Depending on why this happens, it would imply that switching back and forth between standard audio and audio containing ultrasonics for AB comparisons would need to take this lag into account.
 
The presentation went into much greater detail; I asked if I could get links to the pertinent research, which I expect to have within a week. There was also a discussion of localization and the infamous 10 microsecond perceptual difference in animals. It was all quite provocative, with the end conclusion being that humans do respond to ultrasonic frequencies - but how they respond, why they respond, what that response means, and whether it has a relationship to listening to music has yet to be fully explained or understood. I'm hoping the links lead to more information.
 

The news about the research in ultra-high frequency related brain activity is interesting. It makes sense to me. I imagine the brain activity coming up like a slowly growing pad. :-)
 
Also, thank you vey much for the super post (147 and 148) about where you were coming from. It helped me understand better why I was reading you as upset with Bit.
 
When Bit was talking about Amp Sims and stuff he said they don't reproduce sounds above certain frequencies (excuse me if I'm too roughly paraphrasing, Bit). Curious about my Mics and Gear, I plugged in my Studio Projects B3 Microphone (nothing super fancy) and took a screen shot of RMEs spectral analyzer as I made Shhhh sounds into the Mic.
 
From this picture, you can clearly see that the Mic picks up frequencies well above Audible range. In fact, there were frequencies all the way up to Nyquist for 192. If you zoom in on the image, you can see the freqs defined on the X axis.

 
This is a picture where the room was quiet (computer on -- AC on quiet in the background). I touched the screen to take the screen shot. I couldn't take it with keyboard or mouse without capturing the sound of the clicks.

Hey Geoff after reading your post I decided to have a look at the spectrum output from 'Prism'. (not sure why I did not think of it earlier!) I had to obviously chose patches that were rich in harmonics. Some are not and don't go up anywhere near as high as other patches do.
 
When the session was set for 44.1K there were no frequencies above the Nyquist frequency eg 22K. To be expected I guess.  But however when the session was set for 96k 'Prism' had plenty of output right up to 48 kHz. Lots of harmonics up there!
 
Makes you wonder because if 'Prism' is working at 44.1K and not producing anything above 22 kHz it still manages in that state to create a sound that is brighter in comparison to the session at 96K which is now handling output which is raging up to 48 kHz. Yet when it's sampled down to 44.1 it sounds smoother and less bright.
 
Guitar speakers may not produce much up that end but 'Prism' surely can! Another reason why it is sensible to use 'Prism' at 96K because it starts adding the extra harmonics and bandwidth (double to be precise)