[realjhol]

The problem is that you have to implement an anti-aliasing filter that goes from 0dB at 20kHz to -96dB at 22kHz. This isn't a very practical filter to build, and will typically add all kinds of ripple to the top end.

The reason for 96kHz or even 192kHz sampling is that your filter can have a much gentler roll-off.

[JohnBooty]

That's why they chose 44.1khz for redbook audio, right? Takes you up to 22khz, but most people can only hear up to 15khz or less, so you've got some headroom to play with if things aren't perfect between 15-22khz where our hearing isn't super sensitive anyway.

Or no?

[adgjlsfhk1]

That's not really true. 2kHz is a pretty big range to build a filter in (and with digital you can trivially sample at 192khz FFT and delete the high frequency data)

[realjhol]

Sure you can easily upsample in playback.

And the studio can master the recording from a high sample rate recording using an enormous FIR filter, because latency and computing power are mostly irrelevant.

High sample rate equipment just allows you to listen to studio intermediate data without having to have it downsampled first.

But there are problems. For example, if there is any non-linearity in the equipment this can easily cause inaudible tones in the ultrasonic range to intermodulate with each other to produce tones that are audible.

Nothing is simple.