So at the very least there is an argument to be made for high sample-rate... to a point (around 80khz as a revised red-book standard would legitimately make a lot of sense, increasing bit-depth is useless however).
not quite true. a small percent (probably less than 1%) of young healthy adults may hear up to 24-25 kHz, but above that it's not the sense of hearing that might be stimulated. A few people might "sense" some higher frequency vibrations, but it's likely through skin sensation or possibly cavity resonation (e.g. in the paranasal sinuses). The thing about music reproduction, though, is that those very high frequency sounds are so low in level that even in that small number of people who can hear that high, they can't hear sound at that loudness level.Ah yes. This guy certainly knows his stuff.
Though, the fact is that humans can quite easily hear up to around 28khz (potentially above that). Ask me how I know
That was an enjoyable presentation. Charles Hanson of Ayre pretty much agrees with the notion that only 16 bits are truly needed in the final product. What he observes, however, is that most real world laddered DAC chips don't deliver what they promise. And editing digital recordings compromises bit depth. Which is why either 24 or 32 bits (DXD) are universally used in the recording industry.
Here's a question, how are you testing your hearing? Do you know the exact response of the system being used to generate the tones? Have you verified it with calibrated wide-band measurement microphones that you can verify are accurate well into the "ultrasonic" region with NIST-traceable plots or equivalent electronic cal files? Was the calibration method done with a pistonphone at 1khz with against a truly linear (not z-weighted) preamp? Have you verified the actual output waveform qualities on a proper scope, spectrograph or frequency counter?
Then how do you know that you can only hear xyz? Again. This is what people have told you, and this is also why I'm stating to get that device (believe me, for the price and the kind of "wtf" moment you'll have, it's worth the entry fee). Testing your hearing on an iphone or whatever is like trying to bake a Thanksgiving dinner in an easy-bake oven. It just doesn't make sense.
I'm 28 myself, and everyone in my office can hear the tone emitted by a Dazer II (hint, I have a number of co-workers between 35 and 50).
I'll divulge what the frequency the device emits after someone tries it.
