kHz is short for kilohertz and is a measurement of frequency, or cycles per second. In digital audio, this measurement describes the number of data chunks used per second to represent an analog sound in digital form. These data chunks are known as the sampling rate or sampling frequency.
Audio bit depth and sample rate explained
This definition is often confused with another popular term in digital audio, bitrate (measured in kbps). The difference between these two terms, however, is that bitrate measures how much data is sampled each second (chunk size) rather than the number of chunks (frequency).
In digital audio, the most common sampling rates are:
In theory, the higher the kHz value, the better the sound quality. This is because more data chunks are used to describe the analog waveform. This is normally the case with digital music, which contains a complex mix of frequencies. However, this theory breaks down when it comes to other types of analog sound, such as speech.
