Why You Should Never Carry In A State That Does Not Allow It

I know that it might be tempting, when crossing a state where you do not have a concealed carry permit, to just figure, "Its a hassle to unload and store it in a way that conforms to the Firearms Owners Protection Act. What are the chances that the police will search my car?"  At least in Maryland -- shockingly high.  Truth & Commonsense reports on a Florida man who was driving through Maryland.  From the January 12, 2014 Tampa Tribune:

He did not have a gun with him, and it was a good thing.  One of the automated license plate readers in Maryland grabbed his Florida plate, matched it up with Floridas concealed weapon permit files, and then the excitement started:

Finally the patrol cars emergency lights come on, and its almost a relief. Whatever was going on, theyd be able to get it over with now. The officer — from the Transportation Authority Police, as it turns out, Marylands version of the New York-New Jersey Port Authority — strolls up, does the license and registration bit, and returns to his car.

According to Kally and John (but not MTAP, which, pending investigation, could not comment), what happened next went like this:

Ten minutes later hes back, and he wants John out of the Expedition. Retreating to the space between the SUV and the unmarked car, the officer orders John to hook his thumbs behind his back and spread his feet. “You own a gun,” the officer says. “Where is it?”

“At home in my safe,” John answers.

“Dont move,” says the officer.

Now hes at the passengers window. “Your husband owns a gun,” he says. “Where is it?”

First Kally says, “I dont know.” Retelling it later she says, “And thats all I should have said.” Instead, attempting to be helpful, she added, “Maybe in the glove [box]. Maybe in the console. Im scared of it. I dont want to have anything to do with it. I might shoot right through my foot.”

The officer came back to John. “Youre a liar. Youre lying to me. Your family says you have it. Where is the gun? Tell me where it is and we can resolve this right now.”

And yes, the police state of Maryland thoroughly searched the car, separated John and his wife for 90 minutes of interrogation -- and then wrote them a speeding ticket. (They say that they werent speeding, because they were being following by a police car, and knew it.)  Maryland, being a liberal controlled state, is fascist.  I cant imagine ever driving through it.  And I sure would not do it with a gun on me.  I do not think I would even do so if the gun were possessed in accordance with the Firearms Owners Protection Act.  It sounds like Maryland police might just load the gun so that they would have a reason to arrest you and confiscate the gun.

It sure will be nice when Maryland joins the United States, and the Bill of Rights starts to mean something to them besides gay marriage. 

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Why Do High Sample Rates Sound Better

Guest post by Rupert Pfaff

Human hearing is generally defined as extending from 20Hz to 20kHz, and the Nyquist criteria states that a sampling rate of at least double the highest audio frequency must be used in order to accurately to represent the signal. An unwanted side-effect of analogue to digital conversion is aliasing, where musically unrelated signal noise enters the audio band, so an anti-aliasing filter is used to prevent this, but because it is not possible to implement an infinitely steep filter, a slightly higher sample rate is used than is theoretically necessary. This is how the CD standard of 44.1kHz came about (a little more than double 20kHz), and DAT took this up to 48kHz to allow varispeed recording.

So if we cant hear above 20kHz, why record at very high sample rates such as 96kHz or even 192kHz? Some have suggested that although we dont actually hear supersonic frequencies, we somehow perceive them by another means, but experiments that artificially add and remove these frequencies have shown this not to be the case. But golden eared tests which have made A/B comparisons of the same equipment operating at standard and high sample rates have revealed that 96kHz & 192kHz recordings do sound subjectively better - so whats going on?

The answer lies primarily with the anti-aliasing filters - even the best designed filters produce a certain amount of ripple that extends downwards from the cut-off point and gradually tails off, and this is perceived as a smearing of high frequencies and the stereo image. But by moving the cutoff point way up (say to 96kHz), the ripple has all but disappeared by the time it gets down to audio frequencies, and hence, substantially improved sound quality. Importantly though, it follows that this improvement is maintained even after the sample rate has been converted down to normal rates, as no new A/D conversion is required, and therefore, no anti-aliasing filter.

Experienced Recording Studio Engineer Guidelines

In the early days of high sample rate recording, there was a preference for using multiples of the CD frequency (44.1kHz), i.e. 88.2kHz or 176.4Hz - this was because sample rate conversion was a very difficult thing to do at the time, and better quality could be achieved when converting down to 44.1kHz by using an integer multiple. However this is no longer the case, and our usual preferred rate for acoustic recording is 96kHz for a variety of reasons:

• 96kHz is the native frequency of many DVD audio releases
• Although 192kHz does sound a little better than 96kHz, the improvement is marginal
• Some plug-ins do not handle 192kHz audio
• Processing power is reduced to roughly a quarter of that available at 48kHz

That said, if you are working very largely with virtual instruments that have mostly only been sampled at 44.1kHz, and/or you like to use a lot of tracks and processing, it may be more sensible to stick to 44.1kHz. Or if youre making a small classical or jazz recording, you may only need a few tracks and little processing, and want to eke out every last bit of quality you can, then go for 192kHz - let your music make the decision for you.

Rupert Pfaff has worked in the music industry for over 20 years having operated a well known music shop in London before becoming a sound engineer and technical authority for mixing and mastering. Now involved with the day to day running and managing the online bookings for RecordingStudioLondon.

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