While I get that arguing over which sampling rate is better or worse is great fun, I think all of recording comes down to individual preferences and getting past the technical issues so we can get into our comfort zones of creating. If I have been successfully working, selling & creating music at 44.1k for 20 or so years, and have a back catalog of 700 + tracks that sound great, it doesn’t really matter if someone tells me 44.1k isn’t as good. Prince & Dianne Warren used their cassette recorders at the piano to jot down ideas. Of course we know cassette is outdated but for them, it is their comfort zone of how they get their creative juices going. For me to come in and say they are “doing it wrong” is arrogant and missing the point. So it is with people claiming 44.1k is archaic and obsolete. There is no obsolete when it comes to our workflow & process of creativity. There’s only tools & method.
I bought a CQ 18T thinking it would be a great evolution to my process. I received it, only to read the fine print that it doesn’t work at 44.1k. I was so disappointed!! Then I had friends tell me I could spend a couple of weeks and convert all my files and my entire system to 48k, just so I could use the CQ.
I don’t think I’ll do that. I found a Presonus mixer that can do either 44.1k or 48k with the flick of a software button and it makes me wonder…#1, why are we arguing over sample rate choices in 2026, shouldn’t technology give us the freedom to choose our process? and #2, why would Allen & Heath choose to miss out on a huge slice of the musician market that still uses archaic 44.1k (and possibly a tape recorder!) It literally would mean more mixer sales and if Presonus, Soundcraft, Behringer, QSC and Midas can all do it, why isn’t Allen & Heath’s R&D capable? I would think it could be done with a firmware update and a trimming of some fat here & there. The fact remains there is a large portion of beatmakers, musicians, and people still making CD’s that would eat these mixers up, if only they were versatile enough to work at the lowly, insignificant, unusable, outdated 44.1k. It’s exactly like QSC making the Touchmix 16 & 8 and not creating them to be audio interfaces. Huh??! If they had done this, I think they would have made audio interfaces obsolete, but, I think sometimes the geniuses of design really miss the “street beat” boat.
The various A&H digital mixers are designed primarily as a “live sound” mixing console. 44.1 really doesn’t exist today in the live sound ecosystem. It is primarily only found in recording studios. As such, there is little reason for A&H to support 44.1k on any of their current console models.
Some other manufactures are using “off the shelf” processing chips and if those chips support 44.1k natively, they can add that support to their console pretty easily. A&H has decided to use FPGA chips which they basically have customized from scratch. Therefore it would likely take more resources to make the system support 44.1k than takes other manufactures. Given the almost non-existent need for 44.1k in live sound, I think they have decided to spend their time, energy, and money in supporting other things/features. I personally would agree with that decision, but obviously it isn’t going to make everyone happy.
Is this just for playing back pre-recorded music? I just feed it off my phone.
You could easily find that out by reading the OP’s post.
All current A&H consoles operate internally at a clock rate of 96 kHz, and both their hardware and software have been specifically developed and designed for this purpose.
A conversion to 48 kHz presents no issues, as the clean factor of 2 involves only relatively simple calculations.
However, conversion to 44.1 kHz is far more complex due to the necessary resampling, and thus carries, among other risks, the potential for various artifacts that may be more or less audible.
And A&H rightly steer clear of any such unnecessary measures that could
a) compromise their targeted, first-class sound quality and
b) increase their outstandingly low latency figures.
In this light, the decision of A&H not to support 44.1 kHz strikes me as a logical consequence.
If it is it only for recording at 44.1, some DAW (at least the one I am using, Reaper) can do resample recording.
I never use it ( I record at 96khz always) but I have tried and it is working.
My Cq is set to 96kHz, the project setting is set to 44.1 and no pb.
44.1 was never meant to be a general studio audio standard. It was just devised for home CD audio.
There’s no reason to stick with 44.1 in your studio environment.
If you look back at the majority of studio sample rates for early professional digital formats, you’ll find a lot of early digital was 32-50khz, but rarely 44.1.
Frenchie is right… Reaper (and I’m sure others) will resample on the fly, and even run tracks with multiple different sample rates without issue. So if you really want an entire project in 44.1 all the way through, you can still do it.
Another example of a sample rate which is basically obsolete is 88.2. Unless your mastering house specifically asks for it, don’t bother with that rate, either.