On: Don’t be fooled. 24-bit will not fix computer audi...

[rdtsc]

As others have mentioned above, you could use the extra dynamic range and resolution if you do stretching, pitch shifting and other processing.

Yes if you always record and never process the sound but just play it back, then 16/48 is good enough.

(BTW, it should be 48 damn it! not 44.1! ;-) )