Project Sample Rate Reduction Test

First of all, everything above 48 kHz in terms of sample rate is esoteric.

Modern filters are phase linear even when using a very, very steep slope, so there should not be any problem with the really relevant cutoff frequency of about 16 kHz (kids don’t really appreciate music anyway, their hearing abilities are not relevant to us).

Since Nyquist we KNOW even a formula to find out about the sample rate we need. And we also know, from Fourier, that even if there WAS stuff happening in addition to Nyquist, it wouldn’t matter, because all this stuff would be above what we could hear.

In my honest opinion, anyone trying to sell you anything above > 48 kHz (EXCEPT for processing, like oversampling, but this has other reasons, which are purely mathematical and are therefore justified) for playback or recording is selling you snake oil and is wasting your CPU power and your harddisk space.

96 kHz is the same to me as those “EUR 3.500,- HDMI cables”.

So, my home studios format is 48 kHz (because I use optical interfacing) and, of course, 24 bits. It’s just not possible to get any better, biology and mathematics are putting up a limit here.