speakers for 24/96 audio

"Maybe sufficient for sinewaves but not for the music because it would call for brick wall filters that have very uneven group delays (non-linear phase if you prefer) and will cause wrong summing of harmonics. Such setup will be OK for single frequency reproduction but will be very unpleasant with music (dynamic signal)."

I have no idea what you're talking about. The wrong summing of harmonics, and it'll be very unpleasant? I don't know about that, Kijanki. You talk like a technically competent person, but then you make these outlandish claims. So if these summed harmonics will be so screwed up, why is it that those of us with very good high frequency hearing and high quality speakers can't hear anything very unpleasant? And if they do sound so unpleasant, why when I listen to higher res stuff through a Benchmark DAC it doesn't sound noticeably better?

I think you're exaggerating the issues, and wrapping the arguments in technical-sounding reasons that really don't alter the music audibly.

I was trying to show that 16/44 recording wouldn't be a perfect process and that's why it is done in 24/192 but downsampling to 16/44 also takes away quality.

Digital reproduction (as well as analog) have limitations. Filtering screws up transient response and 16 bit resolution is less than perfect.

Why it is difficult to hear difference thru Benchmark? Possibly because available hi-res is often poorly made (many complains about that) while our systems and rooms have shortcomings.

Power amp might be limiting factor but it isn't as bad as Irvrobinson calculated. First of all S/N or THD+N of the amp is usually shown at 1W and many amps are better than 96dB. In addition we don't listen at 1W . For instance if we take Rowland 625 amp's S/N specification of 95dB at 1W at 8 ohm it will be higher at the output power of 300W. We might look as well at residual output noise specified by Rowland that is 55uV at 20Hz-20kHz unweighted. Since output voltage at nominal power of 300W is around 50V it makes S/N=119dB. SACD reproduction is roughly equivalent to 20/96 requiring dynamic range of 120dB. D/A converters are also limited to 20 bits performance.

So to answer original question - increasing resolution might be beneficial up to about 20 bits assuming good recording/file, system and room. Increasing rate will be always beneficial to avoid serious shortcomings I mentioned before.

I settled at standard redbook reproduction not only for practical reasons but also because I cannot stand hiss and pops of analog playback that don't allow me to forget I'm not sitting "there" at the concert.

To add to my last comment...from a purely "technical" perspective I would agree that CD quality is more than adequate as a playback medium. The problem is NOT the CD media itself but more a problem with what the producer and mastering do to the music BEFORE it gets issued as a CD.

Of course 24/48 or 24/96 is essential in the Studio because there is much more dynamic range and signal manipulation required in that environment.

Shadorne, agree about compression but it is simply who is driving the market. Release uncompressed piano recording (about 96dB dynamics) and a lot of people will complain that on their boom boxes or shelf speakers woofers are constantly buzzing. Hi-res has different clientele so they reduced compression a bit but it is still bad. Also, as you mentioned, they try to make average loudness as high as possible because to inexperienced customer it appears as higher quality recording especially with poorly resolving systems.