[reginalb]

No, it wasn't wildly, it was deliberately because we don't know what they would have done with modern technology.

G

But we can safely assume they would have done things quite a bit differently. And I don't think there's ever anything wrong with trying to play something back in a way that sounds more like it would in person, and doubt many musicians of any type would have a problem with that.

Of course, at the end of the day, we should all listen the way we prefer, so you're not wrong to have your preference, but it's definitely not mine.

 

[gregorio]

And I don't think there's ever anything wrong with trying to play something back in a way that sounds more like it would in person, and doubt many musicians of any type would have a problem with that.

Unless the mix is either already optimised to sound like it would in person or it's specifically designed not to sound like it would in person!

G

 

[KeithEmo]

I usually don't chime in on this group - but sometimes I just hear a need for a bit of actual balance (as opposed to listening to two soapboxes on opposite corners of the public square).

First....... "humans only hear from 20 Hz to 20 kHz".
Are you sure?
I read at least one quite reputable seeming report that claims that "under lab conditions some humans can actually hear sounds as low as 10 Hz".
Now, to be honest, I don't recall the details, and I'm not prepared to argue the point.
However, I'm also NOT willing to absolutely positively say that "since nobody can hear 15 Hz we should just throw it away".
I've also read the results of at least two studies that seem to show that we humans can sometimes discern minute timing differences - of the sort that a 16/44k recording cannot properly reproduce.
I don't know if that's real either.
However, since bandwidth and storage space are so cheap, I'd really rather not find out ten years from now that I've been throwing away something that turned out to be useful.

I would also point out that many of the "truisms" I see repeated over and over again aren't actually strictly speaking true.
"The time resolution of a signal is not specifically limited by its bandwidth." (Which means that a 44k recording can reproduce a time/phase difference between the left and right channels of only 5 microseconds.)
"Any signal can be reproduced with perfect accuracy as long as your sample rate is at least twice the highest frequency you need to reproduce". (Basic Shannon/Nyquist.)
Both absolutely true - BUT ONLY FOR CONTINUOUS SINE WAVES.

If I play an "impulse" - an arbitrarily short click - it will be audible because it contains frequency components that fall in the audible range.
And, if that impulse is short enough, a recording with a 44k sample rate will NOT be able to reproduce it accurately - because the position of a SINGLE TRANSIENT that falls between samples cannot be accurately resolved or reproduced.
(None of that other theory applies because we're not talking about a continuous sine waves here.)
Of course, a "pure transient" isn't a valid digital signal..... but how about the exact starting point of a non-continuous waveform that falls between two sample points?
Hmmmmmm........
Does that mean that, on our "CD quality recording", that click might be shifted in the sound stage because its position in time is NOT accurately reproduced?
And can human ears distinguish the difference?
I'm not sure.... and that's the whole point.
Not enough of THOSE tests have been done to convince me either way.
At least one AES-reported test seems to show that it is quite possible to make a test recording such that limiting the bandwidth to 20 kHz (compared to a high-resolution original) causes perceived positions of sounds in the sound stage to shift.
We're not talking about hearing things above 20 kHz; we're talking about an audible click that changes its perceived position in the sound stage when you limit the signal to 20 kHz bandwidth.
(So, if that click is the sound of a drumstick tapping the rim of a snare, it will sound like it's coming from a slightly different place on the stage - so maybe it won't line up with the rest of the sound coming from the drum perfectly.)
Now, maybe that will turn out to be a red herring..... but I'm not SURE it will.

Another thing is that, in at least some cases, some of those "pointless" HD versions have turned out to sound better than the non-HD versions.
My guess is that the main reason is that they were remastered - and it was simply done better than the mastering on the regular version.
However, since any sample-rate conversion involves filtering, and so potentially a slight change in sound, we can never compare that 192k version to an "identical" 44k version.
And, it doesn't really matter if "they could have made a 44k version that sounds identical" if they DIDN'T.
If I buy the better sounding 192k version, but my DAC won't reproduce 192k files, then I have to convert it - which is a nuisance and will quite possibly change the sound.
(So, even if the 192k version doesn't inherently sound better, I'm still better off being able to obtain an unaltered copy, and play it as is, without putting it through another conversion.)

The question of whether "they" could produce recordings at 44k that sound every bit as good as the ones they're selling at 192k is a different question than of whether we have a reason to be able to play 192k files.

People who keep track of my posts know that I an a firm OPPONENT of snake oil.
However, while I'm not 100% sold on the benefits of high-resolution audio, I'm also not sold 100% on all of the arguments against it.
And, to be totally blunt, if this week someone happens to be selling a great sounding re-master of an album I like..... then it's worth buying.
And, since the bandwidth and storage space required for a 192k file only cost a few cents more, why should I care one way or the other?
(Lots of things in this world aren't perfectly efficient or perfectly optimized.... but we tolerate the inefficiency for other reasons.)

And, yes, I do consider many of the original arguments AGAINST 192k presented by Xiph as somewhat specious.
I see them as being analogous to suggesting that "it's bad to make cars that can go over 100 mph because some drivers have problems at that speed".
(Any piece of equipment that is going to have terrible problems if presented with ultrasonic audio components should have bandwidth limiting designed into its input circuitry.)

Incidentally.... a complete aside about the original article that sparked this whole discussion.
At one point Xiph claims that, because the frequency range of our eyes is limited, we cannot ever see the light coming from an IR remote control.
Hmmmmmm.
I used to have an IR LASER pointer - which put out about 1/4 watt at 720 nm (well into the color range of IR remote controls).
Guess what?
You CAN see "near infrared" quite clearly if it's bright enough (so that claim isn't actually true).
(And, yes, we are talking about something that's dangerously bright.... )

Just as a bit of interesting trivia... 44.1K covers the full spectrum of frequencies that humans can hear- 20Hz to 20kHz, with a bit to spare. Higher sampling rates extend the frequency response higher, far beyond our ability to hear, but the core frequencies below 20kHz are rendered exactly the same at 44.1 as they are at 192. So whatever it is that you seem to think is clearly audible isn't audible with human ears. Perhaps a bat!

However, it is possible that your equipment isn't designed to deal with super high frequencies and is adding distortion down in the audible range. So if you are positive you are hearing a difference, it is almost certainly noise, not music.

 

[KeithEmo]

I would take that a bit further.....

What if I adjust that recording to sound just the way I like it, and you adjust it to sound just the way YOU like it?
Now which version is "better" or "right"?
And which one would Toscanini have preferred?
Or would he hate both of them, and prefer something entirely different?
Or, perish the thought, maybe he actually would have LIKED that awful original the most.

Either way, I much prefer to have it in its original form, rather than accept someone else's idea about what it should sound like.
(We pay the mastering engineer for his/her opinion - in the form of what that master sounds like.)
And most of us pay for equipment that is best able to deliver it to us exactly the way it's recorded.
However, since neither of us was there, we can never know that "Toscanini would have liked it a certain way".

If I'd edited it to sound different - in a way I much prefer - I'd save a copy..... and I'd proudly explain to people that I'd "adjusted it" in a way that I think sounds better.
HOWEVER, I would NOT present my new modified version as "a better version of the original" - nor would I claim it was "more accurate" of "higher fidelity".
(It's kind of silly to say "you have a great recording of Toscanini - played in Carnegie Hall" if in fact the recording wasn't played in Carnegie Hall. What you have is a simulation of what it MIGHT have sounded like IF it was played there.)

I would also like to add something here about equipment. If you really want to alter the way a recording sounds, there are dozens of audio editors, and thousands of plugins for them, all designed to alter the way music sounds in an amazing variety of ways. It makes very little sense to pay a lot of money for a specific piece of equipment, based on the fact that it alters the way things sound in some specific way you happen to like, when performing your alterations using software gives you so much more flexibility and a much wider variety of options. (The odds of the alteration produced by a particular piece of equipment being favorable to all your recordings are pretty slim.)

You seem to be completely missing my point. Those recordings may very well be relatively poor, cramped and boxy but that is what was created by the artists, engineers and approved by Toscanini. If I were to listen to those recordings, I want to hear what was created and approved by Toscanini, warts and all. That's my preference though and you are entitled to change what Toscanini created/approved more towards your personal taste BUT, that change is therefore an "improvement" only in terms of your (and others') preference NOT in terms of fidelity, which is you've lowered rather than improved. Confusing an improvement towards personal preference with an actual improvement in fidelity is exactly the tactic used in many audiophile marketing materials, which I've seen you justly rail against on many occasions!

G

 

[RRod]

If I play an "impulse" - an arbitrarily short click - it will be audible because it contains frequency components that fall in the audible range.
And, if that impulse is short enough, a recording with a 44k sample rate will NOT be able to reproduce it accurately - because the position of a SINGLE TRANSIENT that falls between samples cannot be accurately resolved or reproduced.
(None of that other theory applies because we're not talking about a continuous sine waves here.)
Of course, a "pure transient" isn't a valid digital signal..... but how about the exact starting point of a non-continuous waveform that falls between two sample points?
Hmmmmmm........
Does that mean that, on our "CD quality recording", that click might be shifted in the sound stage because its position in time is NOT accurately reproduced?

Not following you here, Keith. The theory says you must first bandlimit the signal, so your infinitely thin 'click' will stretch out to a sinc-like waveform and thus be amenable to sampling at the given rate. And if the filter you use to bandlimit is linear phase, then there is no time shifting of the peak.

 

[bigshot]

You seem to be completely missing my point. Those recordings may very well be relatively poor, cramped and boxy but that is what was created by the artists, engineers and approved by Toscanini. If I were to listen to those recordings, I want to hear what was created and approved by Toscanini, warts and all.

That's a valid philosophy for sure. But it doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the sound. You might want to go one step further and listen to Toscanini on a mono tabletop tube radio, because that's what they intended as well. It's possible that it might sound better that way than playing CDs on a modern sound system. Some of those recordings are pretty unlistenable on CD without helping them with DSPs. It's a shame too, because the performances are electric.

I wonder if the Honeymooners would be funnier on an 8 inch Dumont TV?

Yes, with such old recordings chances are that Toscanini would be delighted by modern technology but maybe he'll still have wanted a much drier recording than bigshot does?

Toscanini loved performing in Carnegie Hall, which is a very similar acoustic to the Berlin DSP on my Yamaha DVR. It's not quite as resonant as the Vienna and Chamber DSPs. Berlin is the one I use to correct the 8H recordings. By the way, these are post-war recordings (47-55 or so), not pre-war. They were recorded for radio broadcast.

Either way, I much prefer to have it in its original form, rather than accept someone else's idea about what it should sound like.

That's the great thing about using DSPs. I use the original recording on CD and process it on the fly to improve it. Cake- eat it too.

What if I adjust that recording to sound just the way I like it, and you adjust it to sound just the way YOU like it? Now which version is "better" or "right"? And which one would Toscanini have preferred?

TOSCANINI CAN BUY HIS OWN DAMN STEREO SYSTEM!

 

[bigshot]

My favorite story about "original artists' intent" is about the great pianist Arthur Schnabel. His Beethoven was widely acclaimed as being the greatest of his era. But he refused to record. He explained it like this... "If I record the sublime Moonlight Sonata, I couldn't help but imagine someone sitting at the kitchen table eating a ham sandwich wearing an undershirt listening to the genius of Beethoven on my phonograph record. I think too highly of Beethoven to allow that."

They finally did convince him to record, but the sound quality is poor because he put too many constraints on the recording sessions. Digital technology can go a long way to correct that unless you want to abide by the grudging intent of the creator. Spectacular performances though. If you ever get the chance to hear them, make sure you get dressed in a suit and tie!

 

[castleofargh]

the 20hz to 20khz is the estimated range for the human species, not world record numbers... many young children can hear above 20khz, geezers almost never get past 15khz. still we stick to 20-20k as a reference. the day I learn that musicians and sound engineers manage the ultrasound content by ear, I'll be willing to bother keeping it as "the artist intended it".
most of us here have highres media and use them when they're good. we're against false arguments pretending audibility that is consistently debunked in controlled tests. and we're against the highres industry because they seem unable to keep themselves from lying about what they're selling. I personally have nothing against fidelity, I can hear it or I can't, I keep it or I convert to lower resolution to save space on my hard drive, those are personal choices. I don't know anybody here who's trying to force the all world to use only AAC.

I don't get the infrared thing. maybe the laser was also emitting visible light? did you fact check that?


as for the impulse, again I don't get it. I can't help but think of an impulse in term of sine waves. and from there, if it contains above half sampling frequencies, then of course we'll lose some. so let's say it's not about the false argument to disguise ultrasounds as something audible, and it's a legit concern about the transient of some instruments attack or whatever. if my own ears aren't applying the equivalent of a low pass on those frequencies any way, how come it's so hard to pass a blind test about highres? that's something I can't wrap my mind around, if something is audible and 44.1khz fails to keep it audibly transparent, why is it so hard to pass a blind test vs highres using musical content? my own conclusion is that we're never hearing more of a transient signal than its content within the audible range. talking about audible stuff while failing to hear them in a blind test, that's a contradiction.

 

[KeithEmo]

Yes......

So, I start out with a PHYSICAL equivalent of an impulse, perhaps by tapping my drumstick on the edge of my drum, I have a very short duration pulse.
Most of the energy contained in it will be at inaudibly high frequencies, but enough will be at audible frequencies that it will be audible as a click.
And, due to my ears resolving the times when that click arrives at each, my brain will construct an apparent location for that click in the sound stage.
However, once you apply your band limiting, the energy from that impulse will be spread out over several sample periods..... and the precise location in time where it occurred INSIDE A SINGLE SAMPLE PERIOD will be "lost".
(We will no longer be able to determine it.)

If I had a continuous sine wave appearing in both channels, even if they were a few microseconds "out of synch", I could extract that information, even at a 44k sample rate.
And shifting the relationship between them, even by a few microseconds, might shift the apparent location of my recorded instrument a few inches to the left or right.
(Because I can resolve a timing difference of far less than a single sample - and in fact one that is infinitely small - with continuous sine wave signals.)
However, with that single short impulse, I'm going to end up with a sort of blurred peak... and, since I don't know the shape of that peak, or exactly where it occurred, I will be unable to reconstruct exactly where the peak itself occurred.

We're stuck with having to band limit the signal....
The real question is whether, when I band limit what started out as a short sharp impulse, there will be NO AUDIBLE DIFFERENCE.
(If I can hear the difference between that mechanical click and the band limited recording of it, then, in terms of audio fidelity, I will have failed to reproduce it exactly.
And that's true even if the difference is merely an apparent shift of a few inches in position in the sound stage.)
Some studies have shown that we humans can detect VERY small shifts in timing..... far smaller than can be resolved at a 44k sample rate.

The question is simply this......
The idea that human hearing can distinguish NOTHING outside the range between 20 Hz and 20 kHz was established using pure continuous sine waves.
But have we determined, beyond any doubt, that this is also true for any and all OTHER WAVEFORMS - including impulses and even purely arbitrary waveforms?
Have we proven that there is no sound which cannot be reproduced with "audibly perfect accuracy" in a system that is band-limited to 20 kHz - or have we only really established that "fact" for continuous sine waves?
As far as I know, very few tests have been conducted with anything other than pure, continuous sine waves of relatively long duration.

Not following you here, Keith. The theory says you must first bandlimit the signal, so your infinitely thin 'click' will stretch out to a sinc-like waveform and thus be amenable to sampling at the given rate. And if the filter you use to bandlimit is linear phase, then there is no time shifting of the peak.

 

[KeithEmo]

The "infrared thing" is pretty simple..... and the output of the LASER is quite pure.

The sensitivity of our eyes to frequencies outside what we normally refer to as "the visible range" falls off rather rapidly - but not immediately.
The red sensors in our eyes do in fact detect what we call "near infrared" - but only if it's VERY bright.
(We're talking about a level that would only be safe to look at for a few seconds at a time.)
A 200 mW 750 nm LASER focused on a 2 mm spot is many tens of thousands of times brighter than the LED on your remote control..... and is in fact still visible to most humans.
(It appears as a sort of pale pink.)

the 20hz to 20khz is the estimated range for the human species, not world record numbers... many young children can hear above 20khz, geezers almost never get past 15khz. still we stick to 20-20k as a reference. the day I learn that musicians and sound engineers manage the ultrasound content by ear, I'll be willing to bother keeping it as "the artist intended it".
most of us here have highres media and use them when they're good. we're against false arguments pretending audibility that is consistently debunked in controlled tests. and we're against the highres industry because they seem unable to keep themselves from lying about what they're selling. I personally have nothing against fidelity, I can hear it or I can't, I keep it or I convert to lower resolution to save space on my hard drive, those are personal choices. I don't know anybody here who's trying to force the all world to use only AAC.

I don't get the infrared thing. maybe the laser was also emitting visible light? did you fact check that?


as for the impulse, again I don't get it. I can't help but think of an impulse in term of sine waves. and from there, if it contains above half sampling frequencies, then of course we'll lose some. so let's say it's not about the false argument to disguise ultrasounds as something audible, and it's a legit concern about the transient of some instruments attack or whatever. if my own ears aren't applying the equivalent of a low pass on those frequencies any way, how come it's so hard to pass a blind test about highres? that's something I can't wrap my mind around, if something is audible and 44.1khz fails to keep it audibly transparent, why is it so hard to pass a blind test vs highres using musical content? my own conclusion is that we're never hearing more of a transient signal than its content within the audible range. talking about audible stuff while failing to hear them in a blind test, that's a contradiction.

 

[bigshot]

Yes......

So, I start out with a PHYSICAL equivalent of an impulse, perhaps by tapping my drumstick on the edge of my drum, I have a very short duration pulse.
Most of the energy contained in it will be at inaudibly high frequencies, but enough will be at audible frequencies that it will be audible as a click.
And, due to my ears resolving the times when that click arrives at each, my brain will construct an apparent location for that click in the sound stage.
However, once you apply your band limiting, the energy from that impulse will be spread out over several sample periods..... and the precise location in time where it occurred INSIDE A SINGLE SAMPLE PERIOD will be "lost".

The problem here is that you don't really know what sort of scale a sample or a drum tap occupies. It's all small, so your mind just lumps it all together. But the duration of a drum tap is several orders of magnitude bigger than the sample- it probably spans a thousand samples. And when it comes to the way that we locate sounds in space, it's not by discerning microscopic fractions of a second like a sample. It involves room acoustics and turning our head to be able to parse directionality. Your understanding of frequencies is the same. How high of a frequency is a drum tap? How high is 25kHz as opposed to 20kHz or 15kHz or 10kHz? What do they sound like? I'll give you a hint... they don't really sound all that different because they're all around the highest octave we can hear- and the difference between 10 and 15 is more than the difference between 20 and 25. Try and define what the numbers represent and you'll understand the physics better.

As a for instance... you're talking about super audible frequencies and the audibility of sound above 20kHz. If I remember correctly, the highest frequency ever recorded as being heard by human ears is somewhere between 22kHz and 23kHz. The frequency range doubles with each octave. So the 23kHz represents 1/13th of an octave. There are seven notes in an octave, so that only represents a half of a note. Humans hear 10 octaves at best. So the difference between hearing 20kHz and hearing 23kHz is almost nothing.

Taking that one step further... The difference between 10kHz and 20kHz is one octave. 1/10th of the sound we can hear. Seven notes at the bleeding edge of human hearing. Only a couple of musical instruments produce sound in that range, and most of it is inaudible due to masking. Controlled testing has shown that the presence of super audible frequencies adds nothing to the perceived sound quality of recorded music. They have also shown that most people don't even really care if all the frequencies above 10kHz are rolled off. Super audible frequencies just don't matter.

 

[71 dB]

I usually don't chime in on this group - but sometimes I just hear a need for a bit of actual balance

Well, let's see what you have to say:

First....... "humans only hear from 20 Hz to 20 kHz". Are you sure?
I read at least one quite reputable seeming report that claims that "under lab conditions some humans can actually hear sounds as low as 10 Hz".
Now, to be honest, I don't recall the details, and I'm not prepared to argue the point.
However, I'm also NOT willing to absolutely positively say that "since nobody can hear 15 Hz we should just throw it away".

We can "sense" frequencies down to 0 Hz. You can definitely feel 10 Hz, but it's a sensation of vibration rather than a sound. The lowest frequency that is sound-like is about 16 Hz, but the sound pressure level must be very high. At 20 Hz the hearing treshold is about 75 dB. Very low frequencies can be stored on CD. There is no lower limit, well if we say we need at least one oscillation and the length of CD is 80 min (4800 seconds), the theoretical lower limit is 0.00021 Hz. However, most CD-players filter frequencies below 5 Hz, so that's the practical lower limit for CD in general.

I've also read the results of at least two studies that seem to show that we humans can sometimes discern minute timing differences - of the sort that a 16/44k recording cannot properly reproduce.

Common misconception of digital audio. The time resolution of digital audio is not limited by sampling rate AT ALL. It is only limited by bit depth and 16 bits provide more temporal resolution you or me will ever need. Study digital audio and someday you will understand this.

However, since bandwidth and storage space are so cheap, I'd really rather not find out ten years from now that I've been throwing away something that turned out to be useful.

Whatever. I know I am not throwing away something useful because dogs and bats don't listen to music.

I would also point out that many of the "truisms" I see repeated over and over again aren't actually strictly speaking true.
"The time resolution of a signal is not specifically limited by its bandwidth." (Which means that a 44k recording can reproduce a time/phase difference between the left and right channels of only 5 microseconds.)
"Any signal can be reproduced with perfect accuracy as long as your sample rate is at least twice the highest frequency you need to reproduce". (Basic Shannon/Nyquist.)
Both absolutely true - BUT ONLY FOR CONTINUOUS SINE WAVES.

No. Applies to all bandlimited signals. Any signal will do as long as it's bandlimited.

If I play an "impulse" - an arbitrarily short click - it will be audible because it contains frequency components that fall in the audible range.
And, if that impulse is short enough, a recording with a 44k sample rate will NOT be able to reproduce it accurately - because the position of a SINGLE TRANSIENT that falls between samples cannot be accurately resolved or reproduced.
(None of that other theory applies because we're not talking about a continuous sine waves here.)
Of course, a "pure transient" isn't a valid digital signal..... but how about the exact starting point of a non-continuous waveform that falls between two sample points?
Hmmmmmm...…..

It doesn't matter when the impulse happens. At a sample point or in between. Does not matter! The impulse is bandlimited and speads in time so that each sample point has a value corresponding the sinc function. This is also how we can "store" the timepoint of the impulse at insane accuracy limited only by quantization/dither noise. Study digital audio and learn. Don't fall into the trap of intuition, because digital audio goes a bit against intuition.

Does that mean that, on our "CD quality recording", that click might be shifted in the sound stage because its position in time is NOT accurately reproduced?
And can human ears distinguish the difference?
I'm not sure.... and that's the whole point.

The click happens at exactly correct moment for human ear. Temporal accuracy could be 1000 times worse and still it would be good enough.

Not enough of THOSE tests have been done to convince me either way.

Nothing will until you learn more.

 

[castleofargh]

The "infrared thing" is pretty simple..... and the output of the LASER is quite pure.

The sensitivity of our eyes to frequencies outside what we normally refer to as "the visible range" falls off rather rapidly - but not immediately.
The red sensors in our eyes do in fact detect what we call "near infrared" - but only if it's VERY bright.
(We're talking about a level that would only be safe to look at for a few seconds at a time.)
A 200 mW 750 nm LASER focused on a 2 mm spot is many tens of thousands of times brighter than the LED on your remote control..... and is in fact still visible to most humans.
(It appears as a sort of pale pink.)

alright so it's borderline visible range and we compensate the lack of cells sensitive to that range with high level energy. so about the same idea as making 20khz audible for me even nowadays if I boost the volume to unsafe levels.

 

[RRod]

Yes......

So, I start out with a PHYSICAL equivalent of an impulse, perhaps by tapping my drumstick on the edge of my drum, I have a very short duration pulse.
Most of the energy contained in it will be at inaudibly high frequencies, but enough will be at audible frequencies that it will be audible as a click.
And, due to my ears resolving the times when that click arrives at each, my brain will construct an apparent location for that click in the sound stage.
However, once you apply your band limiting, the energy from that impulse will be spread out over several sample periods..... and the precise location in time where it occurred INSIDE A SINGLE SAMPLE PERIOD will be "lost".
(We will no longer be able to determine it.)

If I had a continuous sine wave appearing in both channels, even if they were a few microseconds "out of synch", I could extract that information, even at a 44k sample rate.
And shifting the relationship between them, even by a few microseconds, might shift the apparent location of my recorded instrument a few inches to the left or right.
(Because I can resolve a timing difference of far less than a single sample - and in fact one that is infinitely small - with continuous sine wave signals.)
However, with that single short impulse, I'm going to end up with a sort of blurred peak... and, since I don't know the shape of that peak, or exactly where it occurred, I will be unable to reconstruct exactly where the peak itself occurred.

We're stuck with having to band limit the signal....
The real question is whether, when I band limit what started out as a short sharp impulse, there will be NO AUDIBLE DIFFERENCE.
(If I can hear the difference between that mechanical click and the band limited recording of it, then, in terms of audio fidelity, I will have failed to reproduce it exactly.
And that's true even if the difference is merely an apparent shift of a few inches in position in the sound stage.)
Some studies have shown that we humans can detect VERY small shifts in timing..... far smaller than can be resolved at a 44k sample rate.

The question is simply this......
The idea that human hearing can distinguish NOTHING outside the range between 20 Hz and 20 kHz was established using pure continuous sine waves.
But have we determined, beyond any doubt, that this is also true for any and all OTHER WAVEFORMS - including impulses and even purely arbitrary waveforms?
Have we proven that there is no sound which cannot be reproduced with "audibly perfect accuracy" in a system that is band-limited to 20 kHz - or have we only really established that "fact" for continuous sine waves?
As far as I know, very few tests have been conducted with anything other than pure, continuous sine waves of relatively long duration.

We have to be really careful here:
1) "Lost" is a strong word. You mean absolutely ALL information has been lost? Nothing, even stochastically, can be said about the peak location of this packet of data?
2) "Purely arbitrary waveforms" isn't meaningful. White noise looks pretty arbitrary, after all. Plus, you can generate LOTS (official mathematical term) of signals from adding up even a finite numbers of sine waves.
3) You seem to be assuming that you can hear the phase shifts of HF content even if you can't hear the HF content in isolation, which is quite an assumption.

 

[amirm]

I usually don't chime in on this group - but sometimes I just hear a need for a bit of actual balance (as opposed to listening to two soapboxes on opposite corners of the public square).

First....... "humans only hear from 20 Hz to 20 kHz".
Are you sure?
I read at least one quite reputable seeming report that claims that "under lab conditions some humans can actually hear sounds as low as 10 Hz".

That is true. Unlike high frequency limit that is quite sudden and absolute, the low frequency sensitivity remains, albeit at very high thresholds. Here is a composite of various research from the last 20 years or so on audibility of low frequency through ear alone (i.e body sensation excluded):

You can see this in Fletcher-Munson graphs:

WHile high frequency sensitivity on the right cliffs very quickly that of low frequency is sloped and keeps going lower.