I just want to break this down a little bit.
48,000 Hz is the max that anyone needs for listening to music because it's more than double what people are able to actually hear.
When using lower and lower compression, the highest frequencies are decreased, creating a sort of compression that causes the "harsh" sounding high frequencies. For instance, if you had snare hits that were in the 12,000 to 20,000+ range and you compress that, what is left is just the lower 12,000 Hz which sounds harsh because the audio waveform loses a part of its shape. Audibly you're hearing something being "harsh" and visually you're seeing an altered waveform.
Personally, I find that opus at 192kb/s or higher as indistinguishable 99% of the time. There might be the odd song or moment in a song but generally it is excellent and you need audio equipment that is capable of faithfully representing the sounds.
48,000 Hz is the max that anyone needs for listening to music because it's more than double what people are able to actually hear.
When using lower and lower compression, the highest frequencies are decreased, creating a sort of compression that causes the "harsh" sounding high frequencies. For instance, if you had snare hits that were in the 12,000 to 20,000+ range and you compress that, what is left is just the lower 12,000 Hz which sounds harsh because the audio waveform loses a part of its shape. Audibly you're hearing something being "harsh" and visually you're seeing an altered waveform.
Personally, I find that opus at 192kb/s or higher as indistinguishable 99% of the time. There might be the odd song or moment in a song but generally it is excellent and you need audio equipment that is capable of faithfully representing the sounds.
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