On Nov 14, 2005, at 1:34 PM, Patrick Dixon wrote:
Given that the Squeezebox has a 24 bit output, the rounding error
should be down at around at 138-144dB, not 90-96dB and I have a hard
time believing that the effect would be as obvious as you state at
that level.
This is simply incorrect - the rounding error is at the 16th bit of a
16-bit audio signal, therefore it is at -90/96dB.
The output audio signal is 24 bits. The rounding error is at the
least significant bit there.
The source material is 16 bits and when you scale that value it
necessarily needs to be rounded to the output resolution.
It's not just that I like it better - it's also that it's 'correct' to
maintain the accuracy of the original digital data - in a similar way
as it's 'correct' not to sample rate convert 44.1KHz audio to 48KHz
(as
some other manufacturers do).
It's a tradeoff between the accuracy of the gain control vs the
rounding error at the 24th bit.
Even if you don't understand it and won't
take my word for it, the difference between the 'rounded' volume
multipliers and the unrounded volume multipliers is so slight that it
cannot possibly have a negative effect!
Yet they can have a positive effect?
I can believe that it does sound better in some cases because you
would be rounding up the gain value. The oldest trick in the stereo
salesman's book is to turn up the volume to make something sound better.
I'm not trying to be difficult here, but I do want to understand this
before we make a change. Another proposal moved the 8 to 16 bit
threshold from -35db to -30dB. What's the right value for this?
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