If you are using the line out from your Mac, then that's analogue, and the quality will be determined by the consumer grade DACs in your Mac. Historically these have always been 16 bit, but it's possible that newer Macs may have 20 bits or more (I'd be surprised, but I'm a bit out of touch as it's been a few years since I did any audio work on the Mac, and thigns may have moved on since then). When you have analogue circuitry in an electrically noisy environment like a computer you'll be hard pushed to get more than about 100 dB dynamic range because of the high noise floor, so really anything more than 16 bits is probably a waste and serves only marketing purposes.
OTOH if you use the digital output from your Mac (e.g. S/P-DIF) and you have a high quality external box with 24 bit DACs then you can do better than 100 dB, although it still won't be anywhere near the theoretical 144 dB that ideal 24 bit DACs would give you. Bottom line: you really only really need to use 24 bits if you're recording audio for subsequent mixing or other processing where you need the extra head room and don't want any loss of quality. And for decent quality audio at > 16 bits you really need external hardware. Paul On 27 Apr 2009, at 22:19, Jason Davies wrote: > > Paul Russell wrote on 27/4/09 at 21:15 > >> I'm not totally up to date on the specs of recent Macs but I doubt >> that >> any of them have 24 bit ADCs or DACs. Even if they did, the noise >> floor >> of consumer grade ADCs and DACs in a noisy environment like a >> computer >> would be such that you'd never actually achieve much more than than >> 16 >> bits of dynamic range anyway. > > I've got hold of a 16 bit version now. Playing them in turn on > my unibody Macbook through a Logic3 valve amp/ipod thingie, the > extra warmth is clearly discernible. I have yet to try out the > iPhone though. > > cool. (scuse my ignorance -- but then again I wouldn't be asking > if I knew -- but isn't all digital through the mac and out the port?) > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sussex Mac User Group" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/smug?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
