[eric]

44.1 is clearly inadequate. The harsh treble overtone structures many
listeners report from CD vis-a-vis vinyl and analog tape are more than
figments of their imaginations: they are almost certainly artifacts of
the necessity of having more bandwidth than the signal can occupy. The
oscilloscope community figured that out in the 40s and many in the
audio field-Neve et al- have demonstrated it over and over. Yet, Arny
isn't listening.

I think that it is more the 16 bits that is inadaquate. The dynamic range
this presents covers basic listening requirements if everything in the
mastering chain is done perfectly. 24 would be much better.

As far as 44.1, I think that these 'harsh treble overtones' are not due to
any flaw in the basic specification. They are either due to the rolloffs
that occur in analog reproduction wear and tear making users un-used to
hearing flat reproduction, or poor implementations of anti-alias filters.

MAYBE there is an advantage to going to 48 or 50 KHz, but anything more is
gross overkill.

The analogy to oscilloscopes is, to anyone who has owned and used
oscilloscopes, hogwash. So long as your flat frequency response covers
the range of interest there is no problem. If there is a requirement
to have a higher bandwidth scope than the signal you are measuring it
arises from the usual practice of scope manufacturer specifying the
frequency range at the -3 db response point. If you are working with 20
MHz signals a 20 MHz scope (down 3db at 20 MHz) is not going to be
satisfactory.