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Glossary · metric

What is Sample rate (audio)?

Sample rate is the number of audio samples per second, measured in Hz or kHz. CD audio is 44.1 kHz; YouTube serves 44.1 or 48 kHz; pro audio uses 96 or 192 kHz. Higher sample rates capture higher-frequency content; the human upper hearing limit (~20 kHz) means anything above 44.1 kHz is mostly inaudible to humans.

Also called:sampling rate · hz · khz

The Nyquist theorem says you need to sample at least 2x the highest frequency you want to represent. Human hearing tops out around 20 kHz, so the practical minimum is 40 kHz. 44.1 kHz (CD audio) gives ~22 kHz max representable — slightly above hearing for safety margin.

YouTube serves audio at 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz depending on the source. Both sound identical for music; the 48 kHz variant matches the standard for video production audio sync. Higher sample rates (96 kHz, 192 kHz) are for studio mastering, not consumer delivery.

For downloads, the sample rate is preserved as the source. Resampling (changing the rate after capture) is lossy and unnecessary for normal use cases.

Common questions

Does 96 kHz audio sound better than 44.1 kHz?
For human listening, almost never. The frequencies above 22 kHz that 96 kHz captures are inaudible. High-sample-rate files are useful for mastering / multiple processing stages, not for end listening.

Related terms

Bitrate

Bitrate is the amount of data a video or audio stream carries per second, measured in bits per second (bps) or kilobits (kbps) and megabits (Mbps).

Audio channel (mono, stereo, 5.1, etc.)

An audio channel is a single track of sound that gets routed to a specific speaker.

Codec

A codec is the algorithm that encodes (compresses) and decodes raw audio or video into a smaller stream.

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