Streaming resolution

@mattmiller its not that I’m not hearing the difference, but what I hear is as I said flat and too sanitary.  The edge is gone.  Don’t know how else to describe it.  I like what I have not looking to upgrade but just found that the lower resolution sounds more appealing.  Maybe it’s digital ear from CD listening and used to that sound. 

Like most things audio, my response to the sample/bitrate question is "it depends".

OP, in my view, resolution preference is real, but what's actually driving your experience deserves scrutiny. There's a good video on this which essentially argues:

Higher sample rates expose weaknesses in a DAC's implementation and analog output stage — what sounds "sterile" at 96/192 may reflect one's chain's vulnerabilities, not resolution itself. 

More fundamentally, the mastering matters far more than the format. A brilliantly engineered 16/44.1 recording routinely outperforms a poorly mastered high-res file. 

Also worth noting: most modern delta-sigma DACs internally upsample PCM anyway, which means the format battle is often already decided inside the DAC itself. 

Video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WSxrtGOk48&t=489s

Overall, your sweet spot at 48kHz may simply be where your system is most forgiving — not where resolution peaks.

+1 @hilde45 

I think the quality of the recording and mastering is much more important than resolution, at least once you get to Red Book. I've heard a lot of Red Book quality streams that sound better than "hi-rez." I can maybe buy that up to a point-maybe 24-96, there is something to be gained, but I think there is a lot of marketing around hi-rez for gains that are well beyond human hearing.