Interestingly, the 44.1 Hz sample rate relates to available video recorders at the time, which were the only economical devices with enough bandwidth to make digital recordings in real time.CD audio was a compromise, although it's pretty good. But there were choices made when it was developed in the 80s because of the cost of components at the time. The biggest one would be that the audio timing isn't perfect. Digital recordings are made with a crystal oscillator based clock and the bit values stored as data. Nothing wrong with that. That's almost perfect timing.