Comment by davesims
14 years ago
Audio, perhaps like the wine industry, is a vast bastion of confirmation bias and subjectivity, no argument there.
But I know what my ears hear, and IMO there is absolutely a vast different between 44.1 and 192. I'm not sure how you can even question it. Someone else on the thread was saying it's impossible to hear the difference between 16bit and 24bit. I don't even know what to say to that. It's like telling me the glass of Gallo "Table Red" you're drinking is as good as my '75 Lafite. All I can say is "cheers" and just enjoy.
Regarding your wine anecdote: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/10/you-are-no...
If I gave you a bottle of "Table Red" with a '75 Lafite label, I'm sure you'd tell me how rich and wonderful it was. The problem here is that, as you said, "I know what my ears hear". You know you're listening to 192, wow it sure sounds great!
You just need to consider more plausible explanations for the difference you are hearing, such as low-quality sample rate conversion on the playback devices you are using, clock jitter that is less audible at 192k than 44.1k, no dithering on the 16-bit output resulting in quantization noise on quiet sounds, etc.
If you're listening to quiet music in a quiet room at high volumes on very low noise equipment, you can hear a difference in the noise floor level between dithered 16-bit and 24-bit, but at that volume level if that music (or movie) also has full-amplitude signals you'll be reaching peaks over 110dB SPL.
With evidence.