DVDdoug
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Another factor with higher frequencies is masking. Although you might be able to hear to 20kHz (or higher) in a hearing test, in context of regular music the higher frequencies are weak, your hearing is weak at the limits, and those frequencies masked (drowned-out) by slightly-lower frequencies.
One of the tricks to MP3 (or similar) compression is that masked sounds can be thrown-away. And in general when someone hears an MP3 artifact (or a difference from the uncompressed original), it's usually not the loss of high frequencies they hear.
I'm not saying you should throw-away the highest audio frequencies if you don't need to... but they are not always as important as you might think.
One of the tricks to MP3 (or similar) compression is that masked sounds can be thrown-away. And in general when someone hears an MP3 artifact (or a difference from the uncompressed original), it's usually not the loss of high frequencies they hear.
I'm not saying you should throw-away the highest audio frequencies if you don't need to... but they are not always as important as you might think.