Does pono's 24-bit audio matter? Hear for yourself.

21-bit would make for an awkward file format. If we can hear 17 bits of range that's enough to justify storing music as 24-bit.

Dell probably didn't bother putting an analog reconstruction filter on their DACs, assuming they used an average Realtek codec the digital filter in the DAC has a minimum cutoff point around 28khz but could be higher when operating with higher sampling rates. They probably also sent the signal into a filterless class D amp to drive the output. Those two things together add up to a lot of ultrasonic crap in the signal.

I barely can tell the difference between high sample rate 8 or 12 bit audio and 16 bit audio. In some circles I hear people talk about that "gritty" 12 bit sound, but its usually not properly dithered, heavily filtered, 20khz or less sample rate and generally destroyed on purpose.

Audio is generally the best arena for snake oil since subjectivity is so high. I cannot believe that Focal Grande Utopia EM loudspeakers(180,000 usd MSRP) exist in quantity, but I know two people who own a set in their (comparatively) modest living room. I have heard them in action, they sound great, but Im not sure that I heard anything in any of the music that I hadnt heard with good headphones or speakers. At what point is it "good enough"? I own plenty of recordings that no amount of hifi audiophilia will help.(many that I recorded myself ;) )

When you apply negative gain to the 16-bit signal, it has less amplitude in absolute terms, but it should have all the resolution of a whole 16-bit sample in that space.

The point is that whether that 16-bit signal is represented with the lower 4 bits of a 16-bit sample, or the lower 12 bits of a 24-bit sample, you can scarcely hear anything at all, let alone a qualitative difference between the signals.

192KHz is not a higher quality format, it is a production format. The purpose is to reduce the cost and finality of anti-aliasing filters when sampling the signal, it is just cheaper to manufacture. There's a good reason for this being the standard in professional audio, they need to buy a LOT of audio interfaces, many studios will have thousands of such inputs.

Thanks to the basic laws governing signals, we know with near certainty that not only is 192KHz overkill, but so is 48KHz, and so is 44.1. Without significant new evidence showing humans hearing signals with frequencies greater than 24KHz, you will not make any convincing argument as to why we should go with any sample rate higher than 48KHz for human listening.

As for 24-bit, it is another production interchange format. It's there so that you don't need to stand around adjusting gain knobs on audio interfaces so that you get decent fidelity but also don't clip. With 24-bit you can just sample your audio once, and assuming it's within a reasonable range, you can adjust the gain in the discrete signal. There is some indication that 16-bit sampling is less than completely ideal. The very best ears in humanity(newborn ears) distinguish about 21 bits in the safe ranges of amplitude, 24-bit may make sense in an audio system for newborn babies.

I feel that in 2014, music should be released in the best format available from the studio, and if you want a crappier version so that you can shove only 100 songs on your iWhatever, that's your choice.