What hi res file is better 96/24 or 192/16 ?

Man, I can hear the screamin' difference between MP3 and Red Book quite clearly on my car stereo, let alone my hifi rig!  If you can be happy with 192kbps, I guess that's bliss (as an old adage goes).

For what it's worth I find it very difficult to hear any improvement at least in the digital landscape over 44.1 kHz (Redbook CD). I did try out Dylan's Love and Theft on SACD but the results were inconclusive. Generally the standard CD was preferred, with the SACD deemed slightly soft. Of course there is always the issue of provenance and different mastering. These tend to have a far greater impact on sound quality at the user end as a simple comparison of the two versions of Street Legal (1986 original CD v 1999 remaster) will readily demonstrate.

With high-res audio you are asked to place your trust in those providing the downloads that the only difference you might hear is down to only the increase in sampling rate, with zero volume and mastering changes. In other words - cheating.

It could well be that modern all digital recordings might benefit from high sampling rates but the evidence is sketchy to say the least. If the differences in listening were night and day like the ones for vision between Video and DVD then hi-res has a great future.

As things stand the existence of some great sounding CDs seems to suggest that there is little wrong with the medium. Perhaps it's the implementation that often leaves a lot to be desired.

And then there's MQA..

I can’t comment on what you hear and what the difference is on what I can hear. I only know that every person is different and what they can hear is different too. Just because I can very much tell the difference on my system with 192K and 320K MP3’s and then either of those to a CD and then CD to Hi rez (most of the time). BUT not the difference between the 2 high res formats, that doesn’t make me assume that there is no real difference at all or that is the limit on what others can hear either. We are all different hearing just like eye sight. But I can even tell when MP3’s are playing on my little Bose outside portable blue-tooth speaker... :)
I am not talking about "Opening up the transparency and total colorization" when adding little plastic isolators to my speakers interconnects to keep them off the ground. LOL
I am stopping now, I appreciate everyone’s input and I feel kind of stupid not thinking of "listening" to see if I could actually hear the difference. I am glad I could buy just one track of each to see if I could hear a difference or not.
This also made me think of one other thing. I can only unfold MQA to 96/24 and not 192/24 with my current set up. I was starting to obsess about my system not being able to unfold it all the way. looking into hardware upgrades. Now I won’t have to worry about it anymore!! Saved me some $$$ and tap dance explaining to the wife... :)
Thanks again all