ralphpnj wrote: > Thanks for answering my question. > > Now onto your points about opinions. All of these points have more to do > with the process used to initially record the music and are useful in > that context. What I'm trying to get are there any recordings where the > 24 bit version being sold the the consumer has an actual dynamic range > that is GREATER than the 16 bit version. > > Taking a step back into analog recordings, most of which were/are made > using many tracks but which are then edited and mastered down to two > channel stereo for sale to the consumer, I think that a good analogy, > although not an exact analogy, (yes, I do love analogies) with the > current high resolution craze would be for the multi-track recording > masters to be offered for sale to the consumer. In other words, there is > a big difference between the needs of a recording team (artist, engineer > and producer) and that of the end user. So while 24 bit may make sense > when used during the recording process, 24 bit makes little to no > difference to the end user of the finished (fully mixed and mastered) > recording. And to be totally blunt: I don't think that are any fully > mixed and mastered recordings where 16 bits does not provide the full > dynamic range of the musical event on the recording.
I have no idea if there are actually any existing recordings that would benefit from the extra bits. It would require extraordinary care in setting up the recording environment. It would have to have a very low noise floor (should be easily doable in a studio, but what about a concert venue?). It would also have extremely large peak levels (might happen in a concert venue, but seems unlikely in a studio). So the combination of low noise floor and large peaks seems difficult to achieve. These are just my uneducated opinions. I know next to nothing about recording. The other issue is the mics and other equipment used in the recording chain. The link I referenced in my first response talks about this in some detail. It may be like the 'chicken and egg' thing. The recording engineers may be slow to try to achieve extraordinary dynamic range in the recordings until more people have shown the desire to purchase the higher resolution products. Again, a guess on my part. In my opinion, Hi-Fidelity is the pursuit of the highest attainable performance, at least to the limit of human hearing. If I 'settle' for 16/44k, then at what point in my pursuit of perfection does my source material become the limiting factor in my reproduction chain. The link I referenced makes a pretty good case that the current state of the art is not yet sufficient to reproduce the full dynamic range the human ear is capable of hearing. Still work to be done, and 16 bits falls short. But I fully understand the argument that 16 bits is good enough given the limitations many others have cited (environmental noise, limits to the maximum allowable volume, equipment limitations, and even personal preferences). I don't necessarily agree. These are not hard limits, just current state of the art. They can be pushed further. Terry ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TerryS's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=40835 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=105717 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
