[sdiy] Re: Limits of perception...

[Tom Wiltshire]

On 22 Feb 2010, at 18:01, Nick Zampiello wrote:
>  do you think you can't tell the difference between 16 and 24 bit  
> ( for audio)?
> do you think 44.1k sounds just like 48k?  96k?

I don't know, but I'm damn sure that there comes a point when you  
*can't* tell. And that's what I'm getting at - above a certain limit,  
extra 'quality' is well beyond what human beings can perceive.
My original contention was that that point is actually much sooner  
than most people think. Increasingly, I think digital technology is  
arriving at that point.

> > it seems to me that the 'perception' answer is all about what  
> people are
> > tuned in to mentally.

I disagree. You can be as tuned in as you like, but you still can't  
hear 100KHz. I agree that *exactly* where the limit lies might depend  
in some degree to how tuned in you are (ear training, genetic luck,  
etc) but that's a debate over 20Khz vs 25. There's a clear limit  
whether we're talking about pitch perception, bit depth, convertor  
accuracy, whatever. Human beings vary, so individual results vary,  
but that's science, and it doesn't stop there being a scientific fact  
about what the limits are.

Like Greg said, if it rocks you, it works.

Ok, I promise I'll shut up now.

T.