[bigshot]

I read that the highest frequency a human has ever been able to hear is 23kHz. So yes, there is (or at least ways) someone who could hear that high. I’m sure it was very annoying to them, and the problem was rectified by the time they got out of their teens.

 

[KeithEmo]

First off, I disagree entirely on your first assumption. There are plenty of speakers that have a response out well past 25 kHz, including most of the models we currently sell at Emotiva (pretty well anything that uses the new AMT is good out past 25 kHz). And, since they measure flat past 25 kHz when we test them, with a microphone, in a room, those frequencies are obviously making it to the listening position. There are also plenty of microphones that can pick up and record those frequencies. Therefore, they certainly CAN be present in those high-res recordings. However, on to your second point, whether the recording engineer does their best to reproduce the original experience exactly, or simply uses it as a starting point on which to build their vision (which might be quite different), is always going to be up to the production folks. All I can do is to ensure that what I experience is as close as possible to what the production engineer intended.

The original click-removal devices counted on the fact that ticks and pops contained ultrasonic content which was not present in normal musical content. Most of the new ones obviously work quite differently. The fact remains, however, that we may someday discover some other wondrous and amazingly useful process that requires the ultrasonic content - and, if we do, we may wish that our archival copies included it. I've never found any automated method to be entirely satisfactory - but I still prefer not to cut myself off from options. As I recall, CD-4 records required a cartridge with a frequency response out to about 50 kHz, so clearly vinyl CAN contain frequencies far beyond 20 kHz - although a 96k sample rate should be sufficient even for CD-4.

I agree that assuming that high-res is ALWAYS better would be an error.
However, it has the POTENTIAL to be better, and so that possibility cannot be ruled out.
Personally, I would simply prefer to have an actual copy of the master.... which is certainly possible with a digitally mastered recording.

I used to collect antiques..... and I tend to think of audio recordings like works of art.
If I were to walk into a shop, and see twelve identical looking vases on a shelf, but be told by the proprietor that:
"The shelf fell the other day, and eleven of them got damaged; our repair guy is really good, so we're sure you won't notice the repairs, and we'll sell you the repaired ones at a hefty discount"......
I would still choose to pay a little extra for the UNDAMAGED one.
(And that would still be true no matter how long I squinted into a magnifying glass and failed to find the repairs....)
I tend to view files with lossy compression, and in fact any file that's been reduced from the master version, the same way.
Even if I may not notice the difference, and may never have occasion for it to make any difference, I'd still prefer the one that has no damage, or the LEAST damage.
(And, yes, some high-res files are upsampled from CDs, and others may be mastered from tapes that really contain nothing useful above 20 kHz, in which case you've paid a little extra for insurance that has no value.)

I quite agree with you that.....
MANY high-res files are no better than the "normal" equivalents.....

1. But now you've drifted away from the question of can anyone hear 23kHz! This is an entirely new question that must include: is there music-realated content above 23kHz, is it audible in the presence of music, can it be captured and passed unaltered through the entire signal chain to the listener's ears? That last one appears to be a big NO, as reproducing ultrasonics with speakers in rooms plus propagation issues pretty much negates the possibility. But those are all different questions that have nothing to do with the first.

2. No recording represents the original event anyway, but how you consider your recordings is entirely psychological and has nothing to do with actual and real perception as it's pre-loaded with a payload of bias.

3. Nice example, and funny because I am actually intimately familiar with several of those devices, including the Burwen TNE-7000 and the SAE-5000. But you clearly are not familiar with current software equivalent solutions for those problems, which actually do work just fine at 44.1! The detection algorithms used in those early hardware devices had to be very basic, with relatively rudimentary ultrasonic filtering of an L-R signal. Software is not limited in the same ways, and works fine even with the limits of 44.1kHz. Additionally, several of the current declicker software options include many controls that vary the intensity of declick action offering the ability to tune the process to specific problems. Add to all of that the process of capturing a "noise print" and applying noise reduction. None of that was available on the analog devices of the past, and guess what? The new processes work much, much better! And all without that extended ultrasonic response to deal with. Though having ultrasonic content might help in this specific situation in some cases, 192kHz would be completely unnecessary given the actual transient speed of a click and the current detection methods. Sorry, your example doesn't work.

4. Because we do know the actual bandwidth of the noise and signal of vinyl, and 192kHz is completely unnecessary for dealing with either. Most vinyl was recorded on analog tape which has a remarkably sharp HF rolloff characteristic (yeah, only those of us who have maintained those machines realize that), and very little ultrasonic content other than distortion products. No need to capture 96kHz bandwidth.

5. Anyone dealing with recording professionally, or even as an amatuer, keeps the original unaltered, either via back or nondestructive editing or both. The error here is assuming high sampling rates = "better", when it more often means you've captured more noise but no more audio.

 

[bigshot]

I have a technique that I imagine a lot of people use... When people go into a mode where they're speaking solely for their own benefit and have stopped listening and interacting with others, I read only the first line or two and skip the rest. Your first couple of lines was about 25kHz, so I'll answer that...

Digital audio was designed to have a certain amount of overkill when it comes to frequency response. Just because it can capture ultrasonic frequencies, that doesn't mean that ultrasonic frequencies are present in music, or that it would make any difference if they were. (I also refer you back to my previous posts where I let you know that 23kHz is the highest any human ear could hear, and the one where I gave context to the scale of the frequency range you're talking about by noting how it relates to notes on a musical scale. Those two appear to have slipped by you a couple of times now.)

Now... back to your method of communicating... You keep going on and on and make no real point because you ignore anything anyone else says to you except an an opportunity to launch into another irrelevant sidetrack. You're talking in circles with self directed internal conversations. I hope you're enjoying your posts, because I doubt that anyone else is getting very much out of them. You might want to think about externalizing your thought processes a bit by considering your audience and what they are saying. The point of an internet forum is to talk *with* other people, not *at* them.

 

[KeithEmo]

I'm guessing you miss a lot of information that way.....

Generally I speak to inform - and I leave it up to the reader whether they want to inform, be informed, or simply argue.

Your statements didn't "slip by me".
You have asserted that the ability to accurately reproduce ultrasonic frequencies serves no practical purpose because there is no meaningful musical content at those frequencies.
However, as it turns out, some instruments DO produce harmonics well up past 20 kHz (cymbals are one example).
And some humans can in fact hear frequencies above 23 kHz (although, admittedly, not many).
And some other audio processes, like certain click and pop removal hardware, also relies on the accurate reproduction of ultrasonic frequencies.
(Which demonstrates that those frequencies serve a potentially useful purpose in audio reproduction EVEN IF IT TURNED OUT HUMANS COULDN'T HEAR THEM.)
Therefore, it would seem to me that you have failed to prove your assertion.
(And the claim that "nothing important exists up there" is an opinion rather than a fact.)

Therefore, we are both simply "throwing out facts that tend to support our opinions".

I have a technique that I imagine a lot of people use... When people go into a mode where they're speaking solely for their own benefit and have stopped listening and interacting with others, I read only the first line or two and skip the rest. Your first couple of lines was about 25kHz, so I'll answer that...

Digital audio was designed to have a certain amount of overkill when it comes to frequency response. Just because it can capture ultrasonic frequencies, that doesn't mean that ultrasonic frequencies are present in music, or that it would make any difference if they were. (I also refer you back to my previous posts where I let you know that 23kHz is the highest any human ear could hear, and the one where I gave context to the scale of the frequency range you're talking about by noting how it relates to notes on a musical scale. Those two appear to have slipped by you a couple of times now.)

Now... back to your method of communicating... You keep going on and on and make no real point because you ignore anything anyone else says to you except an an opportunity to launch into another irrelevant sidetrack. You're talking in circles with self directed internal conversations. I hope you're enjoying your posts, because I doubt that anyone else is getting very much out of them. You might want to think about externalizing your thought processes a bit by considering your audience and what they are saying. The point of an internet forum is to talk *with* other people, not *at* them.

I have a technique that I imagine a lot of people use... When people go into a mode where they're speaking solely for their own benefit and have stopped listening and interacting with others, I read only the first line or two and skip the rest. Your first couple of lines was about 25kHz, so I'll answer that...

Digital audio was designed to have a certain amount of overkill when it comes to frequency response. Just because it can capture ultrasonic frequencies, that doesn't mean that ultrasonic frequencies are present in music, or that it would make any difference if they were. (I also refer you back to my previous posts where I let you know that 23kHz is the highest any human ear could hear, and the one where I gave context to the scale of the frequency range you're talking about by noting how it relates to notes on a musical scale. Those two appear to have slipped by you a couple of times now.)

Now... back to your method of communicating... You keep going on and on and make no real point because you ignore anything anyone else says to you except an an opportunity to launch into another irrelevant sidetrack. You're talking in circles with self directed internal conversations. I hope you're enjoying your posts, because I doubt that anyone else is getting very much out of them. You might want to think about externalizing your thought processes a bit by considering your audience and what they are saying. The point of an internet forum is to talk *with* other people, not *at* them.

 

[bigshot]

Do you remember what I said about the ultrasonic frequencies in cymbals?

Who can hear sound above 23kHz, because I found 23 as the limit on a website on human hearing?

Noise reduction doesn’t have any relevance with digital audio for playback of music in the home, does it?

 

[KeithEmo]

I believe you said that you think they don't count - in terms of audibility.
I found a few sites that list "the frequency spectrum of popular instruments" - and at least two of them list cymbals as "up to 23-24 kHz".
There was no footnote stating: "but they really don't matter because the level is so low".

In terms of the direct audibility of continous sine waves - 23 kHz as an "absolute top limit" seems to agree with most of the claims I've heard.

If I choose to apply noise reduction to the recordings I play, and I play them in my home, then I guess it is relevant.
(And, if you do not choose to, then I guess it isn't relevant to you.)
I even know one guy who still has a dBX noise reduction unit in his audio rack - and claims to still use it occasionally.
I also actually have at least one commercial CD that has what clearly sounds like record surface noise on it (clearly not put there intentionally).
(I'm guessing the only copy they had available was on vinyl.... and, yes, I do hope to get around to cleaning it up a bit someday.)

However, as I mentioned, I consider music I purchase as being added to my collection (which means that I do not rule out deciding to apply processing to it - or even editing it).
That makes music files I BUY different than, for example, music I stream on my phone, used solely for live listening, and with no option to use it for anything else.
(And, yes, if I had a record I really liked that had some bad scratches, I would save it - just in case some future technology would remove those scratches better than the current technology.
Failing that option, I would digitize it using a sample rate I was sure would record every potentially useful piece of information on it - not just the ones I'm sure I need today. )

Do you remember what I said about the ultrasonic frequencies in cymbals?

Who can hear sound above 23kHz, because I found 23 as the limit on a website on human hearing?

Noise reduction doesn’t have any relevance with digital audio for playback of music in the home, does it?

 

[bigshot]

There's a concept called "auditory masking"... It says that loud sounds at one particular frequency will block the ear from hearing frequencies an octave higher. A friend of mine did a startling demonstration for me once. He boosted the upper mids a little bit and boom! the treble disappeared and the sound got muffled. It's counter intuitive to think that boosting a frequency would make such a big difference in the octave above it, but it's true. A cymbal is a perfect example of masking. The crash in the upper mids / bottom treble pretty much makes the upper frequencies above them inaudible. And as the harmonics go upward, the volume level of the harmonics drop, so the masking continues up kind of like a ripple. There really isn't anything you can hear up around 18kHz in a cymbal crash. It's there in the recording, but your ears don't hear it. You can try an experiment and take a high sampling rate drum solo and roll off at different points. You'll find that you can roll off quite a bit off the top- as much as half an octave- and it won't affect the sound quality. Especially if you're over 50 and you can't hear those frequencies anyway!

I don't think anyone uses Burwen click filters on their CDs, and there are better digital filters available for that. In digital if you are gong to apply noise reduction, you'll do it in an audio editor and then save out the file and play that back. I don't know any real time filters that operate on ultrasonic frequencies that are used in playback. DBX has to be pre-encoded, and no CDs would have that. They would just decode the DBX and save it out. There really isn't any purpose for ultrasonic frequencies for playback. Only for mixing and mastering.

 

[najo]

Wow!
These threads certainly made an interesting read!
Just wanted to put my 2cents as well i guess


As far as reproducing the original audio with high fidelity goes, it depends entirely on the artist and production of the audio.

I've talked to my friend about this in the past, who is a recording artist with a record label and has a couple of albums with a few videos as well.

He told me that when they produce the audio to mix digitally the method of recording depends on the track.
Sometimes they will record with multiple instruments and other times individual instruments.

These form the inputs into the mixing console. However each of these inputs is then further eq'd.
The high cymbals and low bass for example.
They would take the bass and then use high/low pass filters on the eq to narrow the frequency range of each instrument.
So whilst the bass may bleed a little into 100++ they will effectively silence it above this frequency (or a chosen one. Im using arbitrary numbers)
With any high instrument in the high frequency band its the same. The instrument may cover a slight range but this is limited and the frequency spike is very sharp and narrow.
This helps to keep the separation between each instrument too as it provides a clean sound for each, and within a narrow range so less overlaps and muddy sounds.

He suggested that whilst there could be some content in that freq range on graphs it may have been introduced by other equipment/ripping/codecs etc or anything else if the artist has effectively cut the audio to a silence in that range. Even if the instruments used in the audio are typically though of as high or low they most certainly have a cut off.

This is also why 16bit 44.1 is more than enough to very accurately reproduce his audio as everything is trimmed and cleaned up.

I can imagine hearing a cymbal crash rise and trail for a seconds.... but he may well have cut it off...

 

[old tech]

That somehow having a playback system that can reproduce frequencies greater than 20khz is beneficial is up there as one of the marketing scams designed to appeal to the gullible end of the spectrum of audiophiles.

It serves the interests of manufacturers who dabble in that quackery - product differentiation, higher sales margins

It serves the interests of audiophools who paid top dollar so they can "hear" these frequencies, assists with cognitive dissonance

It serves the interests of the less fidelity is more crowd (ie the vinylphiles) - records can have information past CD's 20khz so it must be better, never mind the roll-off from around 16khz, the noise floor limits, the masking effects or the fact that the other end of the frequency spectrum (ie subsonic) is far more important to the imagination effect as humans can at least feel the vibrations from low frequency energy.

Can you imagine videophiles being so gullible to want their video playback to display x-ray frequencies, as if that would make the picture any better? Perhaps there are some videophiles that would be so gullible but nothing like the phoolery found in sections of the audio world.

 

[pinnahertz]

First off, I disagree entirely on your first assumption. 1. There are plenty of speakers that have a response out well past 25 kHz, including most of the models we currently sell at Emotiva (pretty well anything that uses the new AMT is good out past 25 kHz).

2. And, since they measure flat past 25 kHz when we test them, with a microphone, in a room, those frequencies are obviously making it to the listening position.
3. There are also plenty of microphones that can pick up and record those frequencies. Therefore, they certainly CAN be present in those high-res recordings. However, on to your second point, whether the recording engineer does their best to reproduce the original experience exactly, or simply uses it as a starting point on which to build their vision (which might be quite different), is always going to be up to the production folks. All I can do is to ensure that what I experience is as close as possible to what the production engineer intended.

4. The original click-removal devices counted on the fact that ticks and pops contained ultrasonic content which was not present in normal musical content. Most of the new ones obviously work quite differently. The fact remains, however, that we may someday discover some other wondrous and amazingly useful process that requires the ultrasonic content - and, if we do, we may wish that our archival copies included it. I've never found any automated method to be entirely satisfactory - but I still prefer not to cut myself off from options.
5. As I recall, CD-4 records required a cartridge with a frequency response out to about 50 kHz, so clearly vinyl CAN contain frequencies far beyond 20 kHz - although a 96k sample rate should be sufficient even for CD-4.

6. I agree that assuming that high-res is ALWAYS better would be an error.
However, it has the POTENTIAL to be better, and so that possibility cannot be ruled out.
Personally, I would simply prefer to have an actual copy of the master.... which is certainly possible with a digitally mastered recording.

7. I used to collect antiques..... and I tend to think of audio recordings like works of art.
If I were to walk into a shop, and see twelve identical looking vases on a shelf, but be told by the proprietor that:
"The shelf fell the other day, and eleven of them got damaged; our repair guy is really good, so we're sure you won't notice the repairs, and we'll sell you the repaired ones at a hefty discount"......
I would still choose to pay a little extra for the UNDAMAGED one.
(And that would still be true no matter how long I squinted into a magnifying glass and failed to find the repairs....)

8. I tend to view files with lossy compression, and in fact any file that's been reduced from the master version, the same way.
Even if I may not notice the difference, and may never have occasion for it to make any difference, I'd still prefer the one that has no damage, or the LEAST damage.
(And, yes, some high-res files are upsampled from CDs, and others may be mastered from tapes that really contain nothing useful above 20 kHz, in which case you've paid a little extra for insurance that has no value.)

9. I quite agree with you that.....
MANY high-res files are no better than the "normal" equivalents.....

1. So, you're going to apply that same warped logic here too? If a tweeter has output past 23kHz, then it produces ultrasonic energy? Under that definition EVERY tweeter produces ultrasonic energy! That's true in the absolute, false in the practical. We live in a practical world.

2. OK, you work for the manufacturer. How about a set of polar plots of your "flat to past 25kHz" speakers, then? Or link to manufacturer's data. Any evidence at all would be great. From what I've seen, and I've searched this oh just a bit, "flat past 25kHz" is a very, very tall order, especially when you look at dispersion and power handling too. But I'll take those polars when you have them. Then we can talk about off axis HF response of tweeters, microphones and oh yeah, ears.

3. Look again. Very few are flat past 20kHz. Very, very few. And they'd need to be located in the ultrasonic field of some instrument producing ultrasonic energy to pick it up and transduce it. No, the mic problem is not small, it's huge. But, clearly, we're still at the same warped logic, "if one mic has response flat past 20kHz then a mic can transduce ultrasonic energy". I own a calibrated measurement mic flat to 30kHz, but I'd never use it to record anything. Microphones are part of the sonic palette, we don't select them because they are flat to 30kHz, we select them because their sonic signature compliments the application.

4. I already clearly outlined that old click removers needed extreme HF information, and that modern software works differently and much better. You can worry about "someday", that's fine, but if there's no content at 92kHz, even from clicks (there are actual physical reasons for this), you're just blindly throwing technology at a non-problem.

5. Do not confuse the 45kHz response necessary for recovering the CD-4 carrier (FM, BTW), with the ability of vinyl to reproduce ultrasonic audio content. The two functions are completely and radically different. The CD-4 carrier was injected at very low level, of physical necessity, and was frequency modulated. When played the demodulator would "capture" the carrier with a phase locked FM demod, which effectively ignores the rather poor and ragged amplitude response of vinyl at 45kHz. That's completely different than actually playing real ultrasonic content directly, and unrelated except that CD-4 stylus design pushed stylus shape development forward. You do know the CD-4 groove had to be bigger, right? Less playing time, but it had to be just to get that ultrasonic carrier on and off the disc without damaging it. We don't use that size groove on any other kind of record. Once again, a poor example.

6. But you ignore the fact that any high resolution file has also passed through a mastering phase where those in charge will make it sound differently if they intend it to be a perceived improvement. And that has nothing whatever to do with resolution. Potential for better sound from high-res has yet to be clearly proven, and cannot be proven by consumers buying files because there is absolutely no provenance.

7. Well...my other profession is an antique dealer. No, not kidding. My wife has been a dealer for 34 years, and I joined her in the business about 15 years ago. Now, isn't this fun? I can tell you several things are amiss here. There are virtually no antiques of any kind that are perfect. Damage usually reduces value, but not always. Sometimes certain damage increases value! Repairs reduce value often, but not always. Certain repairs increase value too. The value of an antique is a complex function of rarity, desirability, condition and the market which is comprised of at least two or more buyers. In your example you seem to assume all the vases were identical in every aspect except for the damage and repair. That's a condition that never occurs in the reality of antiques! They would all be different, and you'll buy the one you like if you can accept the price and condition. You won't pay extra for the undamaged vase unless it happens to be the one you like, and at that point, damage is no longer a factor if it is minor or well repaired.

8. Why are you bringing up lossy compression??? Tangential at best. We all prefer the least damaged audio file, but at some point the lossy codec becomes fully transparent, and it no longer matters. Oh, sorry, if one person on or off the planet can detect the codec, then it's bad, right?

Thank you for mentioning that the bulk of high-res files are upsampled or analog masters, which fully disqualifies them for the classification of high-res, and casts doubt on the entire high-res file market for being scam artists.

9. Yes, and those that are different could be made to sound the same different way at standard res.

 

[KeithEmo]

1.
I'm sorry, but, yes. If the speaker has output past 23 kHz, and I can measure that output with a microphone at the listening position, then the tweeter is indeed "delivering ultrasonic energy to the listener" (assuming we're referring to 23 kHz as "ultrasonic").
In the practical world, if we can measure something, and the measurements show it's there, then it's there.
(I would agree that, if it's 20 dB down at 25 kHz, it probably won't be doing anything useful at that frequency.)

2.
Here you go.
Here's a link to our Emotiva Stealth 8 studio monitors.... (they're about $900 each - so cheap by audiophile standards): https://emotiva.com/product/stealth-8/
They're rated at:
30 Hz to 23 kHz + / -1.75 dB
28 Hz to 32 kHz +0 / -6 dB
And here are the graphs: http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0201/8878/t/2/assets/Stealth8_Plot_Graph.pdf
And, yes, their response drops off rather rapidly off axis at very high frequencies (but I usually sit in front of mine).
And, yes, those are real measurements.

3.
As for microphones..... I agree entirely...... and it's up to a whole bunch of people what microphones get used, and where the mixing engineer sets his (or her) filters and EQs.
My only goal is to make sure that MY equipment isn't the limiting factor - so I need to be able to handle anything that they MIGHT include.
(And, yes, in engineering, it's pretty standard to include SIGNIFICANT safety margins to eliminate the possibility of this happening.)

And, yes, if the mixing engineer decides to use a microphone that only hears up to 15 kHz, or even to apply a 10k low cut filter, that's his business - because he's PRODUCING music.
However, if it isn't there because MY equipment failed to reproduce it, then my equipment is broken - because it has failed to REPRODUCE what the engineer put there.

4.
As far as I know the "content" on vinyl CAN extend to about 60 kHz (I'm defining "content" as "retreivable information").
I read that the pitch stability on some of the Grateful Dead albums reissued by HDTRacks was corrected by locking onto the residual 80 kHz carrier tone from the erase bias - which is still recoverable on tapes recorded on certain master tape machines.
I agree that I have no plans to either use a vintage click remover or restore any antique tapes.....
However, having extra information that I don't ever use is at worst useless, while not having information that I turn out to need later could be tragic.

5.
My point is simply that, if you recorded a CD-4 record directly off the stylus, and later decide to feed that signal to a decoder, it won't work if those frequencies weren't recorded.
This would obviously be a poor method for archiving four-channel content on CD-4 records.
And, again, if you want to claim that you have AN ACCURATE RECORDING of that Cd4 album, then it should be there.
(Or you must concede that you have saved a "processed" copy of the content rather than an accurate copy of the original.)
You have simply decided to set YOUR goal to exclude the requirement of saving all of the out-of-band content in its original form.

6.
I'm not forgetting that at all.
BY DEFINITION, whatever comes off that mastering console is "right".
BY DEFINITION, the job of a "high-fidelity reproduction system" is to reproduce whatever I play through it accurately and completely.
I absolutely agree that we have no provenance, and that it's a problem.
However, while I can't fix that problem, I can at least make very sure that I don't cause unnecessary damage or alteration.
I can only provide quality assurance on the parts which I control.

7.
If you're really trying to say that "damage is OK" then I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
In most situations, if a perfect example is available, it will be valued more highly than a damaged one.
That doesn't rule out the possibility that there may be no undamaged examples available, or that a certain damaged example might not actually be considered better than a perfect one for other reasons.
However, I don't think you'll find many dealers of legitimate antiques who would suggest deliberately breaking a vase, and then gluing it back together, as a way to increase its value.
Of course the price will be DIFFERENT if it's damaged.... and, of course, if you prefer to pay less for the damaged one, then that's your choice.
(Try putting up two ads on eBay - of the same vase - describe it in one as "perfect" and in the other as "broken - but with a perfectly invisible repair" and see which one goes for a higher closing bid.)

It occurs to me that this provides a perfect analogy to how *I* feel about both lossy compression and storing music in any format that is designed to carefully avoid storing any level of quality that isn't strictly and provably necessary.
To ME, that would be as if I had an undamaged vase which I needed ship, and someone were to suggest: "If you break it into pieces it will fit in a smaller box and be cheaper to ship. We can glue it back together at the other end and
none of our customers will be able to tell the difference.... so what's the harm?"


8.
The reason I bring up lossy compression is the same reason that your favorite studio does NOT store their masters using it.
In order to "work", and deliver a "virtually indistinguishable" copy of the original, virtually all lossy compression relies on a whole bunch of assumptions and given conditions.
Feel free to suggest that, "in order to hear the noise floor on a CD I would have to turn my system up so loud that the loud parts would deafen me".
However, you seem to be ignoring the fact that I might decide to turn the volume way up on a quiet part to hear what one of the musicians mumbled under her breath.....
Are you suggesting that it is INVALID for me to do so?
Or are you simply suggesting that YOU wouldn't do it?
JPeG is a remarkably effective lossy compression for images; but NOBODY sane would use it as an archival format.
The reason is that, while JPG images may be "visually perfect copies of the original" under certain circumstances, that isn't true under ALL conditions.
Try boosting the contrast, or looking a little too closely at one tiny spot on the picture, and you often notice the flaws.
And, if you were to try and edit that picture, it's a virtual certainty that you'll "run into the limitations" caused by discarding all that data.

Of course, in real life, we always have to choose a set of requirements that suit US.
Someone who favors 24/96k as a recording format will be quick to point out that reducing the sample rate to 16/44k is obviously a form of lossy compression....
You are discarding information which cannot be gotten back.
I guess it also qualifies as "a perceptual lossy format" since you decided what was OK to throw away based on what you can hear - and what you expect me to be able to hear.

9.
As for ANALOG masters, since there's a format conversion involved, there is no direct comparison.
You may prefer that the tape hiss be omitted; someone else may insist that it be reproduced ACCURATELY.
(Just as, in video, some people prefer a smooth background, while others delight in figuring out what type of film was used by the original camera crew by examining the shape of the noise grains.)

Back in the analog days, it was IMPOSSIBLE to own a perfect copy of an album, because every copy process added a small amount of error.
Digital technology now makes it POSSIBLE for every customer to own an actual IDENTICAL copy of that original digital master.
To me, it seems like some sort of blasphemy to throw that opportunity away just to save a few bytes - or a few dollars.
It it seems as if I'm not overly concerned with whether they difference is "audible" or "significant"... then you're right.
I simply see no reason to forego "perfect" and go out of the way to look for an alternative which is "not perfect - but I'l never hear the difference".

I also do find it very sad that all of the attempts to claim to provide provenance have turned out to be either overreaching or just plain impractical.
I think it would be great if I COULD really buy a file knowing that it was a legitimate bit-for-bit copy of what came off the mastering engineer's console.
(Clearly the fact that so many companies promise it - even though they routinely fail to deliver on their promise - suggests that a lot of people agree.)

I'm also going to disagree with you on your definition of the word "practical".... simply because it is a word associated solely with personal opinion.
You seem to consider 24/96k to be "not practical".
I define 24/192k as quite practical - because almost all of the DACs I currently own support it (but I consider 32/768k to be a bit impractical with current equipment).
(Note that nothing was said about "necessary" - which is a different value judgment.)

1. So, you're going to apply that same warped logic here too? If a tweeter has output past 23kHz, then it produces ultrasonic energy? Under that definition EVERY tweeter produces ultrasonic energy! That's true in the absolute, false in the practical. We live in a practical world.

2. OK, you work for the manufacturer. How about a set of polar plots of your "flat to past 25kHz" speakers, then? Or link to manufacturer's data. Any evidence at all would be great. From what I've seen, and I've searched this oh just a bit, "flat past 25kHz" is a very, very tall order, especially when you look at dispersion and power handling too. But I'll take those polars when you have them. Then we can talk about off axis HF response of tweeters, microphones and oh yeah, ears.

3. Look again. Very few are flat past 20kHz. Very, very few. And they'd need to be located in the ultrasonic field of some instrument producing ultrasonic energy to pick it up and transduce it. No, the mic problem is not small, it's huge. But, clearly, we're still at the same warped logic, "if one mic has response flat past 20kHz then a mic can transduce ultrasonic energy". I own a calibrated measurement mic flat to 30kHz, but I'd never use it to record anything. Microphones are part of the sonic palette, we don't select them because they are flat to 30kHz, we select them because their sonic signature compliments the application.

4. I already clearly outlined that old click removers needed extreme HF information, and that modern software works differently and much better. You can worry about "someday", that's fine, but if there's no content at 92kHz, even from clicks (there are actual physical reasons for this), you're just blindly throwing technology at a non-problem.

5. Do not confuse the 45kHz response necessary for recovering the CD-4 carrier (FM, BTW), with the ability of vinyl to reproduce ultrasonic audio content. The two functions are completely and radically different. The CD-4 carrier was injected at very low level, of physical necessity, and was frequency modulated. When played the demodulator would "capture" the carrier with a phase locked FM demod, which effectively ignores the rather poor and ragged amplitude response of vinyl at 45kHz. That's completely different than actually playing real ultrasonic content directly, and unrelated except that CD-4 stylus design pushed stylus shape development forward. You do know the CD-4 groove had to be bigger, right? Less playing time, but it had to be just to get that ultrasonic carrier on and off the disc without damaging it. We don't use that size groove on any other kind of record. Once again, a poor example.

6. But you ignore the fact that any high resolution file has also passed through a mastering phase where those in charge will make it sound differently if they intend it to be a perceived improvement. And that has nothing whatever to do with resolution. Potential for better sound from high-res has yet to be clearly proven, and cannot be proven by consumers buying files because there is absolutely no provenance.

7. Well...my other profession is an antique dealer. No, not kidding. My wife has been a dealer for 34 years, and I joined her in the business about 15 years ago. Now, isn't this fun? I can tell you several things are amiss here. There are virtually no antiques of any kind that are perfect. Damage usually reduces value, but not always. Sometimes certain damage increases value! Repairs reduce value often, but not always. Certain repairs increase value too. The value of an antique is a complex function of rarity, desirability, condition and the market which is comprised of at least two or more buyers. In your example you seem to assume all the vases were identical in every aspect except for the damage and repair. That's a condition that never occurs in the reality of antiques! They would all be different, and you'll buy the one you like if you can accept the price and condition. You won't pay extra for the undamaged vase unless it happens to be the one you like, and at that point, damage is no longer a factor if it is minor or well repaired.

8. Why are you bringing up lossy compression??? Tangential at best. We all prefer the least damaged audio file, but at some point the lossy codec becomes fully transparent, and it no longer matters. Oh, sorry, if one person on or off the planet can detect the codec, then it's bad, right?

Thank you for mentioning that the bulk of high-res files are upsampled or analog masters, which fully disqualifies them for the classification of high-res, and casts doubt on the entire high-res file market for being scam artists.

9. Yes, and those that are different could be made to sound the same different way at standard res.

 

[71 dB]

I believe this thread is about consumer audio. In studios 24 bit / more than 44.1 kHz are not worthless. Of course you digitize CD-4 vinyls with higher samplerate for archive reasons, but you can decode it, make for example matrixed Dolby Pro Logic stereo version and sell it to consumers as a 16 bit / 44.1 kHz downsampled version.

 

[KeithEmo]

But the thread title doesn't say anything about "consumer audio"......
And it doesn't say anything about higher sample rates only being beneficial under very limiter conditions.
It makes a blanket claim that "24-bit-audio-and-anything-over-48k-is-not-only-worthless-but-bad-for-music".

I would totally have no problem with the suggestion that "it usually doesn't matter"... and that "most people probably can;t hear the difference"... and that "with most content it probably doesn't matter anyway".
However, the thread, and the fellow who wrote the original article, reached much further.
He not only suggested that high sample rates were NEVER beneficial, but went on to claim that, because of the limitations in a lot of consumer equipment, would actually be audibly WORSE sometimes.
To me, that claim is about as silly as the claims of the vendors who sell high-res downloads are on the other.

The other thing I would like to point out is in the context of "practical" and "available" and "consumer".
As consumers, we are quite limited in what options we have.... and sometimes there is a distinct difference between "what could be" and "what is".

For example, a few years ago, HDTracks reissued the entire Grateful Dead studio album collection in high-res.
The albums were entirely remastered.
And, as it turns out, they sound very good - and far better than any previous versions (at least in my opinion and that of several others).
Do they sound better BECAUSE they were remastered at 24/192k?
Or, at a minimum, will some of the improvement be lost if we down-sample them to 44k?
Does it really matter?
I bought the new remasters BECAUSE THEY SOUND GOOD.
It's moot to suggest that "they could have offered a version at 16/44k that sounded just as good" - because they didn't.
(Well, in that case, I think they did offer a 16/44k version, but there wasn't much cost difference, since I still had to buy the whole set over again either way.)

So, yes, there is a big difference between theory and "what's good for most consumers".
However, as far as I can tell, this thread was started with a statement about the THEORY - that high-res files not only didn't sound audibly better but often sounded audibly worse.
As far as I'm concerned, in order to "prove" the original intent of the thread, you would have to prove that high-res files not only didn't sound better, but actually sounded worse at least some of the time.

What you seem to be talking about would be a thread titled: "Why high-resolution files are a waste of money for most listeners".
(And I would probably cheerrfully go along with THAT claim).

I believe this thread is about consumer audio. In studios 24 bit / more than 44.1 kHz are not worthless. Of course you digitize CD-4 vinyls with higher samplerate for archive reasons, but you can decode it, make for example matrixed Dolby Pro Logic stereo version and sell it to consumers as a 16 bit / 44.1 kHz downsampled version.

 

[bigshot]

I believe this thread is about consumer audio. In studios 24 bit / more than 44.1 kHz are not worthless. Of course you digitize CD-4 vinyls with higher samplerate for archive reasons, but you can decode it, make for example matrixed Dolby Pro Logic stereo version and sell it to consumers as a 16 bit / 44.1 kHz downsampled version.

That's a given because we all know the benefits of high bitrates and sampling rates for professional recording studios. This is a forum for people who want to put together a home audio system. That's the context we're all participating in. But of course audiophiles rebel against context and try to spin things out into theoretical arguments so they can incrementally escalate the audiophoolery. That's a massive waste of time, because if you can't hear it and I can't hear it, it's totally irrelevant to the purposes of home audio. Inaudible is inaudible, and inaudible doesn't matter.

I sometimes think that audiophools should be philosophers or psychologists or priests. Those are areas where gray areas are celebrated and focused on. In Sound Science that kind of mental monkey knuckling is just boring.

 

[71 dB]

For example, a few years ago, HDTracks reissued the entire Grateful Dead studio album collection in high-res.
The albums were entirely remastered.
And, as it turns out, they sound very good - and far better than any previous versions (at least in my opinion and that of several others).
Do they sound better BECAUSE they were remastered at 24/192k?
Or, at a minimum, will some of the improvement be lost if we down-sample them to 44k?
Does it really matter?
I bought the new remasters BECAUSE THEY SOUND GOOD.
It's moot to suggest that "they could have offered a version at 16/44k that sounded just as good" - because they didn't.
(Well, in that case, I think they did offer a 16/44k version, but there wasn't much cost difference, since I still had to buy the whole set over again either way.)

I'm not here to tell you how to spend your money. That's your own business. If great remasters are sold only at 24/192 kHz and you want them of course you buy them, but if they had them available at 16/44.1 kHz too, you probably would find them equally great. Maybe the idea was that it pays off to remaster if you can sell them at higher cost because it's 24/192 kHz?