What is sampling rate?
Digital recording is achieved by sampling – essentially, taking a digital snapshot of the sound at regular intervals. The higher the sampling rate, the more snapshots are created in a fixed period of time, and the more accurate the recording. There exists a direct relationship between the sampling rate, sound quality (fidelity), and storage space: the higher the sampling rate, the higher the fidelity and the greater the storage requirements. Digital sound sampled at high-fidelity rates requires massive storage. For example, the CD audio format can hold 600 million characters of text, but only 74 minutes of uncompressed music.
