> Record companies accordingly used sampling rates just dense enough to keep most listeners from complaining, and called it good. It was good for their profits, sure, but it made the music sound flat and tinny. Were there CDs with lower sampling rates than the standard 44.1kHz? I could understand complaining about low quality DACs or something, but if 44kHz is not enough for you then you're either a child or a bat.
No other sampling rate was used, but before sampling the audio signal had to pass through anti-aliasing low-pass filters. In the beginning, it was extremely expensive to make analog low-pass filters that were steep enough to block frequencies over 22 kHz, but to pass those under 20 kHz. So many audio-to-digital conversions used cheaper anti-aliasing filters, with a narrower pass-band, which could be significantly low…
That wouldn't result in "tinny" sound though as the article claims.