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I'm just curious as to what the highest frequency music tends to delivery, there are a lot headphones that 'supposedly' output well up into the 50-60khz range, and while I know this is just advertising flavour, as our ears can only hear between around 20hz - 17/20khz for the vast majority, I can't see much music going past 8-10khz.
Great question. The "real" answer lies in what is called the overtone series.
Let's say that a guitarist plays a low C (about 131 Hz). The string of the guitar will be set into motion and will vibrate, creating the sound we hear (after being amplified, either from an acoustic guitar's soundboard or electronically in an electric guitar). This main pitch that you hear when the guitarist (or any instrumentalist or vocalist) plays is called a fundamental.
While (s)he plays, the string will also vibrate at half the wavelength, or twice the "amount of Hz" as the low C (About 262 Hz). This happens to make a higher C note. Unlike if the guitarist played the higher C while playing the lower C, this higher C isn't perceived as another pitch. A higher, indistinguishable frequency (pitch) that is created when a vocalist or musician plays a fundamental is called an overtone.
The string will make more and more overtones at 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6 1/7, 1/8, 1/9, 1/10 and so on of the wavelength of the original pitch, and this pattern will extend infinitely. All of these vibrations create an overtone. These overtones tend to get quieter as they get higher in pitch, but there are fluctuations in their volumes from instrument to instrument.
Ever wonder what makes a trumpet sound different from a vocalist sound different from a keyboard sound different from a guitar? The answer lies in how loud different overtones are. A trumpet may have a very loud 1/5 overtone, but very quiet 1/8 and 1/9 overtones (this is just hypothetical). Maybe Adele has a relatively loud 1/6 overtone, but a relatively quiet 1/4. Justin Bieber has very loud 1/1000000 overtone, which explains why he sounds like he hasn't gone through puberty.
Another way to think of it would be that if we removed all overtones, all that would be left is a basic, fundamental pitch. Without overtones, all of these instruments would sound completely identical when playing the same pitch. Pretty neat, huh?
So the answer to your question of "What is the highest frequency that music stops at?" is a resounding "Never!" These indistinguishable frequencies continue on and on forever, far beyond the thresholds of human hearing or the capabilities of recording.
Anyway, this guy explains it a lot better than I do.
A fun experiment you could try would be running your music through what is called a "low-pass filter". A low-pass filter reduces the volume (or even can completely cut out) of audio above a specified frequency. It only allows frequencies be
low said frequency to
pass through, hence the name. Many can be installed in MediaMonkey or Winamp if you run either of those applications.
Here's a link to one.
