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"High-definition" audio for consumers is essentially a scam. The original 44.1khz/16bit redbook CD audio standard already exceeds the limits of human hearing.

https://web.archive.org/web/20190606054038/https://people.xi...

(For professional use, having more resolution/depth is useful, because you may be performing lossy operations, etc)

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While the gist of your argument is technically correct you are missing one important factor, amplification wether through solid state transistor or analog tubes, causes distortion. With 44.1 kHz all sine waves above 22 kHz cannot be reproduced which makes for some pretty unpleasant distortion harmonics if those wave forms are being fed through the wire without a filter on the output signal.

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