Lowest audio settings possible with winmm.dll mciSendString?

Question

I'm attempting to set this recording to the lowest settings possible using C# and winmm.dll. I've set the settings below but I'm not hearing any difference. Does anyone know if I'm missing something?

I'm trying to get the lowest audio settings possible. Like what you'd hear from a walkie talkie.

Any changes I make to the sample rate doesn't seem to take effect.

Thanks,

record("open new Type waveaudio Alias recsound", "", 0, 0);
record("set recsound time format ms bitspersample 8 samplespersec 8000 channels 1", "", 0, 0);
record("record recsound", "", 0, 0);

Answer 1

What is this a recording of? If speech, then try decreasing the bitspersample to 4 and you should here a difference. If it is music, then you should definitely hear the difference between 8 bits per sample and 16.

Now the next part comes with some caveats: 1. DO NOT do the following wearing headphones 2. Begin this (particularly the Sine sweep) using your speakers set to their lowest levels

With that out of the way, head over to audiocheck.net, particularly the Dynamic Range, Dithering and Noise Shaping and the Sine Sweep pages. Here you'll be able to hear speech recorded at various bit sample sizes (16, 8, 8 dithered, etc.) as well as sine sweeps from 20Hz - 20kHz.

Listen to these to see if you can hear the differences in these reference tones. This will give you an indication of what YOU are physically able to hear and what to be listening for when you attempt to detect differences in your sample sound (for example you may not hear a difference between 16 and 8 bits per sample if the sound level is at 0dB). Then go back and try your code out with different bits per sample and sampling frequencies (leave channels at 1) and see if you can hear differences with your sound source.

As a side note, the audio files at audiocheck.net are all downloadable WAV files so you play them back using your code if you'd like.