A pure tone. At 110 dB SPL. On one study.

Yes, if you blast humans with enough energy in any form they will eventually notice. This is not a relevant result for music.

Wow, 26Khz at 110 dBSPL? That's just stupid. You might as well argue that incidental exposure to wifi is certainly fatal because you wouldn't survive being cooked inside a microwave.

110 dBSPL represents thousands of times more energy (in watts) than you could plausibly expect in any musically derived ultrasonic content played at a volume level which doesn't pose a significant risk of permanent hearing loss. At such insane power levels, obviously nobody will be hearing the actual frequency but rather sub-harmonics and/or other physical sensations derived from that moronic level of sound pressure.

By all means provide an alternate study that shows 20Khz is the limit for human hearing.

Because from all accounts it is a myth.

If they can only hear it way above the threshold of physical damage, that's a good anecdote but it's definitely not relevant to music playback.

Sensitivity to audio falls off a cliff as you approach 20KHz.

And that assumes you have young ears. If you're older, chances are it's nowhere near 20kHz.

At normal listening levels, yup. I'm 30 and I can certainly hear the hideous 19 kHz anti-rat blasters they have all over shops in Tokyo (and I think they almost certainly cause ear damage and should be illegal - IIRC they are marketed as putting out 138dB SPL!) but I am rather unlikely to hear the difference between music low-passed at 19kHz and 20kHz.

> I am rather unlikely to hear the difference

Especially if your hearing has been damaged by repeat exposure to 19 kHz at 138dB SPL.

I do try to run away or cover my ears when I run into them...

> from all accounts

From all accounts? Don't you mean from one account?