At a minimum, anything above 16/44.1 requires far more than just files: monitors, a treated room, listening position, DAC, etc... but most importantly - a trained ear. That last one is the most uncomfortable truth.

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Blackthorn 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Are you, per chance, a dog posting on the internet? Since 44.1khz sample rate is already past the range of the human ear, regardless of training.

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MertsA an hour ago | parent | next [-]

You need at least twice the frequency range for sample rate in order to represent the original signal. That's slightly misleading though, that's from the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theory and it's a mathematical fact but that is true for exact numerical samples, once you add in quantization that muddies the water a bit. Taken at the extreme, it's straightforward to see why a 1 bit quantization per sample at 44.1 kHz would not capture a perfect representation of some analog signal even if there's only a 1 kHz frequency component to the signal. If we instead decide to sample at 10 MHz but still one bit quantization, now that 1 kHz frequency component can be much more accurately represented even though we're still using the worst quantization possible. Don't think of quantization like a square wave or a step pattern, think of it as "the signal is closer to here than any other discrete value".

Now in terms of realistic audio encoding, 16 bit at 44.1 kHz is designed to be a faithful representation as far as human hearing is concerned. Can someone with a trained ear potentially tell the difference between that and 24 bit at 192 kHz? In a studio environment it's possible. Most audiophile claims are dubious and a blind A/B test catches them out on most of it but the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem does not directly apply to quantized samples, it's about exact samples and with quantization, sampling rate is intertwined somewhat with the quantization depth.

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move-on-by an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don’t have great hearing, so I’m not sure I can really weigh in here (thanks punk concerts in my teens). I remember similar arguments around screens and 60Hz vs ‘the human eye’. I think a lot of people, myself included, can easily perceive the difference between 60Hz and something higher- given the right conditions. I would not be so quick to disregard claims of more sensitive hearing.

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clawlor an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Max representable frequency is half the sampling rate (nyquist-shannon theorem), which is still a bit above normal but IIRC the extra headroom has something to do with eliminating aliasing

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Blackthorn an hour ago | parent [-]

Indeed. And what is the max frequency that a human can hear?

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Rotundo an hour ago | parent [-]

Depends on age of the listener, on average, 30 to 50 year olds hear a maximum frequency of 14 to 16 kHz.

	▲	Blackthorn an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Right. Which are quite below 1/2 of 44.1k!

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UtopiaPunk an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you want to hear the difference between an audio file recorded at 44.1 and 88.2kHZ, then you need slow the audio playback down. Otherwise, a trained ear cannot physically hear the difference.

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scns 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

A treated room would be the most impactful, DACs the least.

	▲	yellowapple an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The DAC is pretty impactful if it's outright incapable of outputting anything beyond the usual 48kHz :)