Which gets back to your original point about both sample rate and bit depth contributing to the dynamic range. I'm very curious: can you give me some search keywords that would get me to the math behind that? Also, I've never heard the claim that the 44.1kHz rate biases toward 440Hz tuning, is there somewhere I can read more about that?
pulse code modulation, pulse density modulation...
44.1kHz/100 = 441hz. But that's nonsense in the same way that saying that a signal at the Nyqvist frequency can be accurately encoded. @diroussle pointed out that you lose phase but there's another consideration, sync. If your signal at Nyquist is not in sync with the sampling frequency, then it's going to be represented as a signal offset, an out of phase line.
I understand PCM, 1 bit DACs, et al. What I'd love to see are some equations relating the three quantities of bit rate, sampling frequency, and distortion. Turns out to be very hard to Google.
In any case, thanks for your patience, I'm glad to have cause to reconsider my position on this topic.
