[bigshot]

You're going to be waiting quite a while

 

[Bill St. Clair]

I concur, jaddie, but you still aren't getting my point. I agree that most of the differences we hear are production quality, not bit rate or depth, then our own cans or speakers, then our own DACs and amps. But I'm filtering out all of that, doing my own downsampling of my own 24/96 source files, and trying to discern a difference between 24/96 and 16/44 when all else is the same. Yes, if the 16/44 were worse, it could be a problem with the downsampling software, perhaps a badly designed digital low-pass filter, or that my DAC doesn't do as good a job on 16/44 as it does on 24/96, but I'm not noticing ANY difference, and though I was initially surprised about that, if only because of so much ranting about higher sample rates and bit depths, my knowledge of how digital sampling works agrees with my experiments, there should be no perceivable difference.

 

[jaddie]

  I concur, jaddie, but you still aren't getting my point. I agree that most of the differences we hear are production quality, not bit rate or depth, then our own cans or speakers, then our own DACs and amps. But I'm filtering out all of that, doing my own downsampling of my own 24/96 source files, and trying to discern a difference between 24/96 and 16/44 when all else is the same. Yes, if the 16/44 were worse, it could be a problem with the downsampling software, perhaps a badly designed digital low-pass filter, or that my DAC doesn't do as good a job on 16/44 as it does on 24/96, but I'm not noticing ANY difference, and though I was initially surprised about that, if only because of so much ranting about higher sample rates and bit depths, my knowledge of how digital sampling works agrees with my experiments, there should be no perceivable difference.

 
This is what I would expect.  There should be no audible difference between the two.  

 

[SonicSavour]

You will not hear a difference. As explained in this highly educational and entertaining video the bit depth affects only the noise floor of the recording and nothing more. But the noise floor of a normal CD is already -96dB below the music. I don't think you can hear that.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIQ9IXSUzuM#t=276
 
Similar information ist provided in this thread.
http://www.head-fi.org/t/415361/24bit-vs-16bit-the-myth-exploded

 

[hogger129]

  In terms of subjective sound quality, how big is the difference to you personally?

This song is in 16 bit/41.1 khz now, will be released on the album in 24 bit/96 khz, how big would the difference be?http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2013/08/01/207932250/vikings-choice-kayo-dot-sums-up-a-decade-of-sonic-transgression-in-thief

 
I have two Phillips/Magnavox shelf speakers and a Phillips/Magnavox MX940 receiver hooked up to my computer.  I didn't find any noticeable difference when listening to two albums that are the exact same master.  If I had a soundcard that was built for 24/96, the difference would probably be a lot more noticeable, but for now I'm perfectly happy with the CD standard (16 bits, 44.1khz, 1411.2kbps) provided it's mastered well.