i find this topic really fascinating--it begs the question: at what point is a certain technology so good that improvements upon it are imperceptible to the senses (of the average person)?

in terms of factoring in the "fidelity" of the senses there are obviously limitations (to our hearing) worth noting. one is that the AVERAGE person can't really consciously detect a volume difference of less than a decibel with any consistency. not to say that there aren't subconscious implications to have track elements a half decibel louder but it's worth knowing this.

i think inevitably delays become an important topic here because of the Precedence Effect--this is a good quote from the Wikipedia page: The "precedence effect" was described and named in 1949 by Wallach et al.[3] They showed that when two identical sounds are presented in close succession they will be heard as a single fused sound. In their experiments, fusion occurred when the lag between the two sounds was in the range 1 to 5 ms for clicks, and up to 40 ms for more complex sounds such as speech or piano music. When the lag was longer, the second sound was heard as an echo.

the above effect is hugely important when using delay effects and when working in stereo systems. the position of your head in the stereo field has a big effect on your perception of a sound (since both ears are hearing sound from both speakers but with a slight delay). factor in reverberations in your room and things get even more complicated which is why I feel the standard cheap bedroom setup with nearfield monitors is ill advised without proper acoustic treatment/speaker placement.

continuing my rant i just kinda wanted to ask--do you guys feel that super high sampling/bit rates really improve the sound quality? i usually work at 44.1K or 44.8K out of habit but I'm wondering whether you notice a difference and (more importantly) whether or not fans/listeners would care?

The point of 44.1k is because of foldback and the Nyquist Frequency. The Nyquist frequency is the minimum rate at which a signal can be sampled without introducing errors, which is twice the highest frequency present in the signal. That was taken right from a quick google.

Anyway 44.1k comes about because half of this is 22k which is typically above the upper limit for what can be heard by a human ear.   

A quick explanation of foldback.
Assume your sampling rate is 1000 hz (this number just makes it easier) and you record a signal that is at 1,100 hz. This is 100 hz over your sampling rate and it will be recorded at 900 hz introducing error to your recording.
So that is why the standard is 44.1k.

Quote from: Lighght on January 15, 2016, 11:46:36 pm

So that is why the standard is 44.1k.

right i know all of that regarding the Nyquist frequency and sampling rate I was only asking to see if ultra high fidelity replication made a big difference to you guys as mixing and mastering engineers

ahhh I getcha. for me no it doesnt! Bitrate on the other hand....