Sample Rate questions, what should they be set to?

[Sporus]

FIRST image = my windows7 sound settings when i right click the little speaker in the bottom right...
i guess this is my ultimate overall sound setting...

SECOND and THIRD are the media player I use called XMPlay
what should those numbers in red be set to corresponding to the first image???

also THIRD image just clarify is the settings window OF the XMPlay program


ALSO what is sample rate? is it this?
whats the number with the hz at the end.. im new to this.


thanks in advance!

 

[mickey megabyte]

unless you have really fancy sound system and super-sensitive ears, you won't hear any benefit from changing to 24bit 192000Hz - if i were you i would switch back to 16bit 44100 Hz - which is the cd audio standard. it will give your computer less work to do. you only really need the 24/192000 if you work in a top recording studio and have real hi-tech gear.

without going into too much technical detail, when a sound gets digitised the volume gets measured and recorded a certain number of times per second, and captured at a certain level of detail - the number of times a second is the sample rate (eg 441000 times a second) and the detail is bit depth (eg 16 bit - ie it's given a number between 0 and 65536).

what you see displayed in your media player is the information relating to the file you are playing - that file (like most others) was digitised at 44100 / 16, and changing the settings in the windows control panel is not going to make it sound any better, but will make your computer work harder for no benefit at all.