There are professional audio "engineers" who claim they can hear the difference in the types of audio cables used. And when when challenge them on it, rather than defend it, or demonstrate it, they'll just name-drop musicians they've worked with... most of which are producing albums these days that sound like garbage because of the loudness war.
Their words mean very little.
I totally get going for 24 bit over 16 for the noise floor, though.
I knew some audio engineers who had different cables (cardas copper, pure silver, some others i can't remember) on identical headphones (Beyerdynamic) and everybody agreed you could hear not insignificant differences that they would describe as sharper transients, tubelike saturation etc. I consider that they were pro "engineers", they designed hardware and software for Avid.
Nobody is arguing that 16 bits is enough during the recording and mixing process. If they are claiming that 16 bits is insufficient for consumer distributed music, they need to go back to remedial science class.
Their words mean very little.
I totally get going for 24 bit over 16 for the noise floor, though.