If I can has hearing over 16 KHz again, I can has very happy!

Is there anyone on this forum who can hear above that? MP3 strips it out anyway. I can still hear up to 14 KHz though, and I still use the Fraunhofer encoding at 320kbps. It's not CD quality but it's close.

Here's a good, understandable description of hearing and audio compression. http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=High-frequency_content_in_MP3s

This is the first substantive paragraph, which gives a summary:

Why MP3s omit high-frequency content

MP3 encoders typically "lowpass" their input, cutting off the highest frequencies. There are several reasons for this:

Human hearing tends to drop off sharply somewhere between 16 and 20 KHz, usually toward the low end of that range.
The input to the encoder is unlikely to have much, if any, audible, musical (non-noise-like) high-frequency content.
Even if the source does have audible musical content above 16 KHz, preserving it would take away valuable space that could be used by the lower, more important frequency bands.
The MP3 format has difficulty storing content above 16 KHz without sacrificing quality and increasing the bitrate requirements of the lower frequency bands.


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