I have prepared five digital audio files of a short musical loop containing both instruments and voices. The files were recorded at different sampling rates and resolutions and saved as QuickTime movies for use on the Web. For the purposes of this demonstration, the audio was not compressed.
The differences in sound quality can be heard by playing the examples below. In general, changing the sampling resolution from 16 bits to 8 bits produces a noticable increase in noise. Changing the sampling rate from 44 kHz to 22kHz or 11 kHz decreases the audible frequency range. The highs and lows get dampened and the sound is less rich at lower sampling rates. File sizes are marked in bold.
Monophonic excerpt at 44 kHz sampling rate, 16-bit sampling resolution, 1300 kilobytes
Monophonic excerpt at 22 kHz sampling rate, 16-bit sampling resolution, 700 kilobytes
Monophonic excerpt at 44 kHz sampling rate, 8-bit sampling resolution, 700 kilobytes
Monophonic excerpt at 11 kHz sampling rate, 16-bit sampling resolution, 350 kilobytes