Why Distributing Music As 24-bit/192kHz Downloads Is Pointless

An anonymous reader writes "A recent post at Xiph.org provides a long and incredibly detailed explanation of why 24-bit/192kHz music downloads — touted as being of 'uncompromised studio quality' — don't make any sense. The post walks us through some of the basics of ear anatomy, sampling rates, and listening tests, finally concluding that lossless formats and a decent pair of headphones will do a lot more for your audio enjoyment than 24/192 recordings. 'Why push back against 24/192? Because it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, a business model based on willful ignorance and scamming people. The more that pseudoscience goes unchecked in the world at large, the harder it is for truth to overcome truthiness... even if this is a small and relatively insignificant example.'"

Comments

Re:The article writer is a deaf idiot

[bmo]

Go listen to Stuart Copeland tap on his hi-hats with FLAC, shn, cd-audio, or apple lossless, and then at 192.

Then get back to me.

--
BMO - One world is enough, for all of us --The Police

Re:44KHz

[AK Marc]

Your ear samples at about 20 kHz. Going to twice that has some theoretical benefit. Going above twice has no theoretical benefit. Sample as high as you want, but anything above 44 kHz will be useless waste of space (assuming you are human or are playing it on real devices).