[QLab] Sample rate and Qlab

[Clay Benning]

I have some designer friends that are new to Qlab, but experienced in  
the industry. We were discussing the flexibility of being able to use  
files with different sample rates in the same session.  This is great  
because if I have music recorded at 24bit/48kHz and sound effects  
recored at 16bit/44.1kHz, I can just drag the files into Qlab and go,  
right? No need to convert to one standard or another because we've  
got a great piece of software.

My question for Chris, and others who want to chime in, how does the  
locked sample rate of the output device affect all this? If I have an  
external firewire box with a default sample rate of 44.1kHz, is this  
messing up the nice quality of my 96kHz sampled music file? Should I  
really set the master device clock to 96kHz and let it up-sample all  
of the 44.1kHz stuff? Or are we splitting hairs since most of the  
quality is in the file itself, rather than the D/A?

What is the CoreAudio (and Qlab) take on this?

Thanks,
Clay