alt Hacker NewsI don’t have great hearing, so I’m not sure I can really weigh in here (thanks punk concerts in my teens). I remember similar arguments around screens and 60Hz vs ‘the human eye’. I think a lot of people, myself included, can easily perceive the difference between 60Hz and something higher- given the right conditions. I would not be so quick to disregard claims of more sensitive hearing.
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I would. It’s really simple.
The human threshold-of-hearing curve intersects the threshold-of-pain curve at about 20 kHz.
Above that frequency (or thereabouts) the sound has to be so loud that it will literally instantly damage your hearing before you can hear it.
This has been replicated across many studies for more than 100 years.
Flicker threshold is completely different. You can’t damage your vision by increasing the FPS, and it has always been commercially desirable to use a lower frequency because that is cheaper.
(I responded on this topic in this thread already) Look up articles on practical limitations of AD/DA converters and why a seemingly counter-intuitive claim that the difference between 44.1 kHz and above is noticeable is actually a completely accepted practical reality (aliasing, lowpass filters, etc)