[TriEmbed] This hertz to read - why is 32768 Hz the perfect frequency?

[Brian]

On 3/31/23 00:35, Tadd Torborg via TriEmbed wrote:
>  From the linked article
> 
> *"The majority of digital audio equipment operates at a sample rate of 
> 44.1 kHz or precisely 215 Hz”*
> 

This is a patently false statement even if you add in the missing caret.

Yeah, so as others have pointed out, the real answer to the silly 
headline question is because it makes a 16-bit counter overflow at 
exactly 1 Hz, which is super useful for driving digital timepieces, and 
apparently happens to be a comfortable resonating frequency for a quartz 
crystal.

There's no clever relationship between 2^16 and 44.1 kHz, though.  44.1k 
is not a nice power of two.  It comes, possibly, from NTSC TV scan 
rates; see https://dsp.stackexchange.com/a/17702

I would question the use of the word "majority" in that sentence as 
well.  I'd claim the vast majority of digital audio equipment is capable 
of handling a variety of sampling rates.

-B (who dabbles in the guts of digital audio)