Zp 24/96

As a (chartered) electronics engineer I agree with Keith's view! I thought about what you said, and while "utter rubbish" may be a bit heavy, nevertheless it's a fact! Why not just concentrate on enjoying the wonderful music experience that the Sonos system facilitates?

Given the additional noise on these higher-res files is inaudible and, very likely, detrimental to playback quality,
How does that work then?

How does that work then?
See http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html#toc_1ch

See http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html#toc_1ch

I read that a while back, I still don't see how something that's inaudible can be detrimental, particularly as the people that hold that article up are usually the same people that will say that frequencies above 20kHz can have no benefit to audio reproduction, because they're inaudible. If they can't have any benefit then they can't be detrimental either.

Distortion from the ultrasonics appearing in the audible range, as explained at the top of the section I linked.

Neither audio transducers nor power amplifiers are free of distortion, and distortion tends to increase rapidly at the lowest and highest frequencies. If the same transducer reproduces ultrasonics along with audible content, any nonlinearity will shift some of the ultrasonic content down into the audible range as an uncontrolled spray of intermodulation distortion products covering the entire audible spectrum. Nonlinearity in a power amplifier will produce the same effect. The effect is very slight, but listening tests have confirmed that both effects can be audible.

I read that a while back, I still don't see how something that's inaudible can be detrimental, particularly as the people that hold that article up are usually the same people that will say that frequencies above 20kHz can have no benefit to audio reproduction, because they're inaudible. If they can't have any benefit then they can't be detrimental either.

They are inaudible to humans, but when electronics try to reproduce frequencies they are not meant to reproduce, it causes intermodulation distortion in the audible spectrum, which can be heard, and is detrimental to the sound. In layman's terms, straining the electronics in order to play ultrasonic noise causes distortion you can hear.

Right, so it's not inaudible then is it?

Right, so it's not inaudible then is it?

The frequency itself is inaudible, the affect on the electronics is not. In other words, you cannot hear a pure 30 kHz tone, such as a dog whistle. Blow a dog whistle, you will hear nothing. But record a dog whistle and play it back, you may then hear distortion caused by the strain on the transducers and/or amplifiers. This distortion is purely an artifact of the electronics, the recording only has the inaudible 30 kHz tone.

The frequency itself is inaudible, the affect on the electronics is not. In other words, you cannot hear a pure 30 kHz tone, such as a dog whistle. Blow a dog whistle, you will hear nothing. But record a dog whistle and play it back, you may then hear distortion caused by the strain on the transducers and/or amplifiers. This distortion is purely an artifact of the electronics, the recording only has the inaudible 30 kHz tone.
So that would imply that so-called "super-tweeters" that reproduce frequencies far above what we can hear could be a good thing by removing that "strain" from the tweeter's transducers right?

So that would imply that so-called "super-tweeters" that reproduce frequencies far above what we can hear could be a good thing by removing that "strain" from the tweeter's transducers right?

No, because you can't hear them. The answer is not more and more esoteric snakeoil, the answer is not to sample frequencies that 500 years of hard science has proven nobody can hear. Golden ears do not exist. Period.