I like this article. The author himself says he can hear a difference in 96Khz recordings and thinks because it is because of smaller time intervals affects how the left and right hear the sound.
Well, in the end the TLDR of it is people had the same chance of picking the high-res audio in the test as they did flipping a coin. (And interestingly, those with superb hearing - above 15khz capable - actually had a poorer results.)
Upsampling to 768Khz just sounds different, maybe even worse as though something is lost but I have no words to describe it.
It may introduce pleasing distortion? Who knows... If it sounds good it is good. All other things being equal, though, most people won't/can't hear the difference between 44.1 and 96. (The fact that the vast majority of audio engineers who actually produce the music stick with 44/24 or 48/24 is revealing as well.) However, as all things are rarely equal, there
are valid reasons for recording at a higher rate. (lower latency when recording live instruments, maybe a particular piece of gear performs better at a higher sample rate, the client demands it, etc. etc.)
At any rate, I'll sign off with this: It's no big secret that lossy codecs seriously detract from the master recordings, the worst offenders introducing digital clipping and distortion along the way. (A prime reason for Apple encouraged engineers to enroll in the "Mastered for iTunes" program.) As such, I would
gladly welcome a high-res service from Apple and the ability to purchase music or stream tracks via higher quality, lossless codecs.
Can't wait to see what Apple has in store. Cheers all!
