Taken from an audioasylum post...discuss if you like.
But DBT and hi-res rear their ugly heads again:
Here's the abstract of a paper just given at AES' Barcelona conference:
O-1 Differences of Hearing Impressions among Several High Sampling Digital Recording Formats—Toshiyuki Nishiguchi, Kimio Hamasaki, NHK Science & Technical Research Laboratories - Tokyo, Japan
To study the difference of hearing impression of recorded sound among several high sampling digital recording formats, we conducted subjective evaluation tests. Perceptual discrimination was evaluated among the following digital recording formats: 24-bit/48-kHz, 24-bit/192-kHz, and DSD. The sound reproduction system for the subjective evaluation tests was carefully designed in order to reproduce the highest quality of sound on each digital recording format. Listening panels were selected from students of a university of music, recording engineers, and musicians. Sound stimuli for the evaluation were originally recorded to have exactly the same quality of analog signal that was fed to different A/D conversion systems. The results of subjective evaluation using the pair test method showed that the sound quality of the auditory frequency band in this experimental system might not depend on the sampling format.
Convention Paper 6469
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I have not read the paper itself, but, the abstract seems to suggest that 24-bit 48 kHz cannot be DBT distinguished from DSD. Had they said that 16-bit 44.1 could not be distinguished from DSD, I'd cock an eyebrow at that. But people with no axes to grind and decades of experience have told me that the big jump in sound quality is going from 16 bit to 20, and after that increment, you are hugely in diminishing returns.
FWIW.
John Marks