The important points made repeatedly are that
1) We cannot hear ultrasonics (no peer reviewed and confirmed / repeatable experiments that show we do)
2) We can and do hear intermodulation generated by ultrasonics
and therefore
3) We can and do hear differences between audio with ultrasonics and audio without ultrasonics - but what we are hearing in the way of differences are an added colouration or distortion.
So - can you hear a difference - yes you can
Can you identify what that difference is - probably not!
My emu 1616m ADC sounds better at 24/96 than it does when recording at 16/44... no question.
It also sounds worse at 24/192 than it does at 24/96
Does this provide any meaningful information about the qualities/capabilities of 16/44 vs 24/96 vs 24/192 - none whatsoever!
A recording made at the better sounding 24/96 rate, and then downsampled (and properly adjusted for amplitude, dithering etc... to ensure no nasty things happen) to 16/44 sound indistinguishable from the 24/96 original (level matched to within 0.1db)
And that downsampled 16/44 version sounds better than the one recorded in 16/44 in the first place.
This is telling me a lot of things about my recording gear, and what its design sweetspot is - but nothing at all about the recorded formats.
In my opinion the article is spot on.
There are lots of reasons to use higher rates during the recording and processing stages - some of those reason have to do with what recording rates the gear itself works best at. (a lot of chipsets now have their sweetspot at 24/96 - at which rate they almost invariably use quad oversampling as well - at 24/192 the same chipsets often use no oversampling or only double oversampling)
I would choose a carefully recorded and mastered 16/44 recording over something chucked down carelessly on 24/192 any day!
I also think people should take up the article authors challenge and do their own ABX tests using their headphones...
Doing so with various gear and sources wherever possible can often debunk long held assumptions... it is a very interesting thing to do!
Always worth remembering that crap is an excellent fertiliser that enhances and improves growth...
bye for now
David
