Since a few people have asked, this is just me experimenting, not an actual argument for this kind of precision in audio. A classic essay on this, well worth reading, in the Internet Archive by the Ogg Vorbis author at
24/192 Music Downloads …and why they make no sense
TL;DR
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There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format. Its playback fidelity is slightly inferior to 16/44.1 or 16/48, and it takes up 6 times the space.
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for increased sample rate you may end up reproducing ultrasonics and other weird artifacts; it’s basically excess precision that’s more likely to harm than help.
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for 24+ bit depth, while there are reasons to use it in recording and production, the effective in-practice dynamic range for 16-bit is 120dB which is plenty, more than 15 times the 96dB claim. So while it may not be harming the sound, it’s basically a waste of bandwidth and space.
And of course the science:
This paper presented listeners with a choice between high-rate DVD-A/SACD content, chosen by high-definition audio advocates to show off high-def’s superiority, and that same content resampled on the spot down to 16-bit / 44.1kHz Compact Disc rate. The listeners were challenged to identify any difference whatsoever between the two using an ABX methodology. BAS conducted the test using high-end professional equipment in noise-isolated studio listening environments with both amateur and trained professional listeners.
In 554 trials, listeners chose correctly 49.8% of the time. In other words, they were guessing. Not one listener throughout the entire test was able to identify which was 16/44.1 and which was high rate [15], and the 16-bit signal wasn’t even dithered!
I did run my own experiment with MP3 bitrate and found similar results to the above. See if you can hear the difference between these five samples:
I got 4/6, I only consider picking “128kbps mp3” a failure 
… and I blame the whispers on Tom’s Diner for throwing me off on one of those!!
What does actually work to improve sound quality, per the article?
- Better headphones
- Lossless formats (mainly to combat potentially badly encoded files, and to avoid generational loss in quality)
- Better base masters for future generations, so I believe recording masters today at 24-bit and 48 kHz makes sense.