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While that’s all well and good, your ears can’t hear that difference in sound due to a phenomenon called auditory masking. Though it’s true a 24-bit file will have much more dynamic range than a 16-bit file, 144dB of dynamic range is enough to resolve a mosquito next to a Saturn V rocket launch. Capturing more data per sample does have benefits for dynamic range, but the benefits are pretty much exclusively in the domain of recording. The other audio quality myth is that 24-bit audio will unlock some sort of audiophile nirvana because it’s that much more data-dense, but in terms of perceptual audio any improvement will be lost on human ears. If your hearing can’t reach anything higher than 22.05kHz, then the 44.1kHz file can handily outresolve the range of frequencies you can hear. This is why to older ears, music has less audible distortion if you use a low-pass filter to get rid of sound that you can’t hear-it’ll make your music sound better even though it’s not technically as “high-def” as the original file. For example, I can’t hear anything above 16kHz. It’s only when the sample rate drops below that point where problems arise (below).Īdditionally, the frequencies you hear at the highest end diminish over time as you age, get ear infections, or are exposed to loud sounds. If you’re over 20, that number should be about 16-17kHz, lower if you’re over 30, and so on.Īny sample rate that exceeds twice the frequency will be perfectly represented (above). Just be sure you don’t set the volume too loud before you do it. If you want to check out the limits of your hearing, use this tool to find the upper limits of your perception. For the sake of argument, let’s expand that range to the uppermost limits of what we know is possible: 22kHz. The most common range of human hearing tops out at about 20kHz, which is 20,000 periods per second. Does the sample rate of your music files exceed that number?.What’s the minimum sample rate needed to meet that range (2 x highest audible frequency in Hz).The limit of frequencies that you can hear.To understand what the limit of human perception is for sample rates, we need to identify three things:
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Don’t believe me? It’s time for some math. Nobody on God’s green Earth is going to know or care about the difference because our ears just aren’t that sensitive. You may also notice that your DAC or a phone like the LG V30 support files with sample rates up to 384kHz. If you’ve looked at your music player’s information tab, you may notice some of your songs have sample rates of 44.1kHz, or 48kHz. Chances are near 100% that your current library is perfectly fine. While I have no doubt that formats like MQA are technologically impressive, most won’t really be able to appreciate the increased fidelity. The truth of the matter is that humans just can’t perceive the difference between files at a certain point, and you shouldn’t get sucked into the marketing hype if it’s more expensive than what you have already. While I’m no stranger to delivering bad news, like any good journalist I show my evidence. You don’t need crazy-high quality files unless you’re creating music that needs heavy editing. That’s because digital music as it is today has already left our perceptual limits in the rear-view mirror. You may have seen discussion online surrounding bit depth and sample rates, but what you probably don’t know is that there isn’t some magic setting that’ll make everything sound better. As it is with many disciplines, with music a little knowledge goes a long way. Everybody wants great audio, but sometimes our quests for improvement lead us down some really dark and… dumb… corridors.