44.1kHz is all that one needs for -perfect fidelity-, given that humans cannot hear higher than ~20kHz. See: Nyquist-Shannon Sampling Theorem. [0] 16 bits of quantization gives a Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) of 96dB, and noise dithering increases that [1]. More bits are not necessary unless one is doing music production with that audio and warrants the extra headroom, before mixing back to 44.1kHz/16bit for distribution. [1]
The only thing that higher bits/sampling rates do for a listener is waste CD and drive space, so it is odd to lament 44.1kHz/16bit as being "really poor". Even if your speaker setup can actually output extremely high frequencies, only your dog will be able to hear it...
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampli...
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20181109203430/https://people.xi...
CD's are certainly good enough for now.
But that is for a pure tone under perfect laboratory conditions. Also, they report that the minimum hearing threshold at those frequencies was above 90 dB. So I don't think any human in this planet can actually hear anything above 20 kHz under normal circumstances, much less for music.
cf musopen. https://musopen.org/music/
They've got some lovely high bitrate and bandwidth recordings there, and what they've caught is room and audience noise. They'd have benefited from more mics and mixing and less "throw bits at it"
No, that doesn't follow. It just means that recording at those bit rates and sampling frequencies isn't the "bottleneck" for the sound in the system.
>But there really is a difference between a phone with a music app playing a 16bit/44.1kHz song on a medium quality headphones and a dedicated player with a good DAC chip playing a 96kHz song on a good quality headphones.
When everything you compare to is better quality then of course it sounds better. But it's not due to the 96kHz vs 44.1kHz. Nyquist-Shannon is mathematical reality.
You have to compare the same high quality headphones, the amp with the same DAC, with the same recording, being played through a high quality filter bringing everything down to 44.1kHz/16bit.
I agree. If there is a methodologically sound study showing that people can actually distinguish (>50%) between 44.1kHz/16bit and 192kHz/24bit on the same hardware [at exactly the same dB SPL], then I will be really surprised. It's not physically possible to hear those differences, as far as I understand it.
https://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml
(part 1 at https://xiph.org/video/vid1.shtml is also very well worth watching.)