RobbH wrote: > I mostly share your attitude, and I agree that most of us find CD > resolution all we need. > .... > Like most new technologies that seem at first to be perfect, because > they are free of the obvious problems of past technologies, it took some > time for people to learn to hear the imperfections of the CD format. > Many -- probably most -- of us have never learned, and we are usually > happier for our ignorance. But I don't think it's at all reasonable to > think that, because I usually hear no difference between 16 and 24 bits, > or between 44.1 and 96 KHz sample rates (with ears that are old enough > that they hear little or nothing above 10 KHz), therefore anybody who > claims to hear a difference must be wrong.It would be unreasonable if that > was the basis for the conclusion that 16/44 remains enough. But it isn't. CD clearly was a compromise but the science at the time suggested that it could capture pretty much all you can hear, and nothing has changed really. Human hearing really does have limits on its dynamic range, and so do microphones. And even if you could in theory just make out a tiny quiet sound with the track played so loud that the peaks are at the level that would deafen you, masking effects would wipe that out. Some people might just be able to hear the odd thing above 20Khz, but they tend to be too busy with their schoolwork. The intersting thing is that people who claim to hear improvements in hi res over 16/44 tend to hear it just as much in recordings where there's nothing to hear as in the recordings where there is (in theory). I think this is what ended up driving Mark Waldrep off the edge - he started out trying to advocate Real HD and has ended being more of an involuntary spokesman for why HD doesn't actually matter.
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