I'm confused as to what's being argued about and am really trying here... seems Goddard is focusing on converters and other hardware issues but how does this relate to the settings we use within our DAW?  My Focusrite Forte supposedly has great components and truly sounds magnificent... but if Sonar already uses higher rates/bit depth to deal with digital distortions and all the other yaya within the DAW's elaborate signal chains to output clean signals to the master buss feeding the interface, is anything gained by outputting high rates/bit depth to the interface as long as we don't overload that last buss? 
 
Goddard, I did peruse all your links and found them not really at odds with many of the bottom line thoughts conveyed here... as it relates to what we should be inputting/outputting....as modern daws deal with the summing/additive signals (or cumulative, all my dum dum words) internally to provide the headroom for boiling it all down nicely... if I understand it right... a few indicate 96/32float is beyond necessary but some may feel prudent
 
And at least to this layperson, the points Goddard makes seem to be validated by modern DAW designs which deal with these issues...internally.  If the DAWs do their job with this and we do our job at inputing/outputting reasonable signal levels, isn't it modern DAW design that reduces the need for higher rates/depth on the input/output side of things?  In that respect, both sides of this argument are valid! Peacepipe anyone???
 
I think the anger on both sides is unfortunate and don't really get it...when the issue boils down to what makes sense to create coherent and awesome sounding music...seems that's the goal most of us are striving towards...which really rests on mixing skills, listening skills, and developing the rigor and understanding of how to wield all the tools we have available.  
 
I must say, this is the first time I've seen egos go kinda weird around here.  On both sides.  
 
BTW, drewfx... really appreciated your tackling my spew trying to comprehend it all... nicely done.
 
 

From my time and perspective sound engineers never were audiophiles, they just got the best sound with what they had. Agonizing over sample rates was generally a 5 or 10 minute conversation. If you had a day to record one song with a musician you may have spent six hours socializing and three hours doing the work for instance. That way you got a performance. A change in sample rate does not change a performance and is certainly not worth chapters of debate.

I tend to agree, Alex at least after looking into all of this... never did before! I must say I have improved the quality of creations FAR more by upgrading to the Forte interface than anything... probably because of some of the technical issues being bandied about here and implemented in uber quality pres and dacs... I am truly blown away by the a/b comparison of the Forte and a couple other interfaces I have used and tried, leading up to my getting it... just night and day... way more significant than whatever's at stake here...
 

This thread has gotten way out of hand.
 
Bob Bone

So to summarize, 96 kHz and 24 bit depth rate is all that anyone will ever need for making music, because human ears are pretty terrible.

And 44.1 KHz and 16 bit depth rate are still plenty enough. As for CDs, do people actually still buy those instead of using itunes or similar MP3 downloads anymore? Digital downloads (legal ones!) have totally destroyed CDs now, and its a good thing too because it eliminates CD printing and distribution costs. For video games at least, just about everyone uses digital downloads now, I though music was the same, its unbelievable convenience.

I'm laughing as i read this!

robert_e_bone
This thread has gotten way out of hand.
 
Bob Bone

Your words of wisdom rings true again! 
No wonder peace is so illusive when this can happen!

The internet is for porn, no wait, arguing!

Actually, based on the OPs article, I've switched to 88.2 which still gives me 6ms latency on the Forte, which is good enough...BECAUSE I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!  if latency isn't a problem then go lower....you ipodder you!  Heck, get an irig and forget sonar! 
 
Why you...wanna fight, Vab?  my interface can eat your porn any day!  jiz.... ooooop! I mean geeeeeze!

robert_e_bone
This thread has gotten way out of hand.
 
Bob Bone

From bits to digits!

hey, we're on shlongs now!
 
actually, this has been very theraputic... Vads gettin back into porn, I've been working on track templates and sent off one to my buddy in Canada who just got X3 and is struggling with Kontakt... and this thread is helping me keep awake!