I'm not saying you are right or wrong here but can you provide some evidence to support this? Perhaps a link to an article or something along those lines?

Do you need the aliasing theory here or some test with software? cos in the first case there are plenty of page in the net that explain the aliasing phenomenon... (starting from here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliasing), else, if you want to know if a software is good or not in removing aliasing when it downgrade the sample frequency well it's just a filter... I guess it's not a difficult algorithm to implement in any software so I trust i.e. motu if they say that their anti aliasing filter is working... maybe it's difficult to find and remove aliasing AFTER the downgrade cos you should find the aliasing noise... but this isn't our case.
regards, Lorenzo

It would seem as though I was wrong. I found an interesting quote from Bob Katz, a mastering god, who had the following to say about sample rates:

"Usually 48K sounds more "open" to me. And 96K sounds "purer and warmer" while retaining the openness of 48K. I highly recommend 48K over 44.

HOWEVER, yes, I've encountered situations where 44 sounds better than 48! If the material sounds better a little more closed in and less revealing... It all goes back to the choice of compromises and the nature of the original recording. I try to upsample to 96K for any digital processing, so at the end of that chain I get to listen to both the 96 and the 44 and I'd hate to admit it (lose my audiophile license)--- for SOME material, especially the hard rock, the 44.1 reduction takes away some of the ugliness or softens some of the distortion. Most times, though, I terribly miss the 96K.

This is a dilemma, should we use the more open, revealing format only to like the reduction at the end, or get our sound at 48K that we like and hope for the least "degradation" when reduced to 44K? I say, do what works best under the individual circumstances, and get to know your medium's limitations---or even advantages."

I guess I'll be giving 48kHz another try.

you weren't wrong... many people just can't hear 20 KHz and many times the aliasing phenomenon isn't that bad due to the fact that we usually don't produce with our instruments frequencies so high... I think that "open" "purer" "warmer" even used by Katz do mean NOTHING. I've seen a video of a meeting of great audio technician here in Italy where the speaker let them hear to some recordings done with the same microphone and different pres: the first list was in order so "this comes from a UAD, this one from a Neve, this from a Focusrite" and so on and people sitted there swear to recognize each sounds due to the "crisp" or the "flat" and other kind of BULL$HIT. Then he mixed the files and say "this is file 1, 10 seconds ago you saied that it is obviously an ... what is the pre?" EVERYONE GAVE DIFFERENT ANSWERS at this point and he started laughing. This prove many things but above the other there is only one... brains are "influenceable" (hope this is the correct word)...
So I think that it's not important the frequency or the bit rate... but just the fact we DO like or not the recording...

I agree partly. Higher bit rate is going to give you more headroom to work with but I'm starting to thing that sample rate is a subjective thing. I'm sure some sound cards and some types ov music sound better at different sample rates.

I found this example in the net... play a sine wave at 34.1 KHz and record it at 44.100... you'll hear an awful sound at exactly 10 KHz... this isn't subjective eh eh eh! (ok, 34.1 KHz is a really high freq but many harmonics can reach that HZ)

I use a ceative x-fi, but the only audio i record usualy is from the virus via usb. is this method still affected by convertors, am i oosing quality?

can i change to 24bit on the Cubase songs that i've done allready, aslong as they're just midi and virus tracks (no audio yet)?

il get hold of that bobkatz book as most this stuff is above me.

thanks

Logically, the higher the rates, the better the quality. The biggest determining factor is surely the quality of your A/D converter. I use an RME Multiface at 44.1 24 bit and cannot tell any difference between 44.1 or 96 running 16 tracks of audio. The difference between 24 and 16 bit is, however, discernible.

Yeah, honestly, I think a person is better off buying a good converter like an Apogee Rosetta or something rather than tracking at a really high sample rate.
With my own music, I've never been mixing and thought to myself, "ya know, this sounds great and all but I'm getting some aliasing from those cymbals thats really messing things up." Its just never happened to me.
Now this is something I notice in different synthesizers. But when it comes to recording, I've never really ran into that problem.

Yeah, if your fundamental is 34.1kHz. . . .
I see your point though.