Kellen;482878 Wrote: > It seems that the principals involved in this debate believe the benefit > of 24 bit over 16 bit extends beyond simply going from 96dB to 144dB but > rather involves capturing a "finer" value of amplitude at each sample > in the range where the music actually lies. > > Is this wrong or right?. Perhaps a thought experiment may help. Consider an analogue waveform that you're going to sample digitally. At every instant in time when a sample is taken, you measure its height. If you're sampling at 16 bit, the accuracy with which you can measure that height is 1 part in 65,536. If you're sampling at 24 bit, then the accuracy is 1 part in 16,777,216. Clearly, you get a much more accuate measure of the waveform's value at 24 bit.
BUT... the above refers to sampling a *perfect* waveform. In the real world, the analogue signal you're sampling has got noise in it. That noise means that the height of the analogue waveform at any instant in time is only an approximation of what it should be. (And if the analogue waveform has an S/N ratio of 80dB, its height at any instant in time is potentially in error to the tune of about 1 part in 10,300). So measuring it at extremely high accuracy simply records the analogue noise better. Who cares about that? Noise is, by definition, random unwanted "stuff". It contains zero information, and capturing it faithfully does not improve the fidelty of the recording. -- cliveb Transporter -> ATC SCM100A ------------------------------------------------------------------------ cliveb's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=348 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=71039 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
