Value of 20 bit A/D converters...

I´m a drummer, and i´m thinking about buying a console...
Accidentally I was watching a video of Dave Weckl (Chick Corea´s drummer) and he was using the YAMAHA 01V Digital Console (for monitoring, mainly)...
It seems to be a great piece of gear, but it has 20 bits converters...
Right now i´m using my dear Firepod and it sounds good to my ears, but i was wondering if is fair to compare new/cheap stuff converters (at 24 bits), with yamaha/older-more-expensive stuff, converting at 20 bits...

What do you say? Thanks!
 
In my experience, a decent modern converter will outperform the Yamaha converters of that age (I had a DS2416 and AX44), probably by 10dB or more in terms of SNR. A cheap modern converter might not be any better. The Firepod's spec is only 2dB better. It's not all about SNR, there are other criteria, but SNR is a pretty good proxy for overall converter performance.

The 01V is still very useable, but you'd need to watch levels a little more closely. Nothing crazy though, just don't let peaks fall real low.
 
JuliánFernández said:
What if the SNR is close (like the case of the Firepod and the O1V)?
Are that extra 4 bits that important?

That's what I mean, in this case, the 4 extra bits do nothing. In theory, they would extend dynamic range from 120 to 144dB. But when the actual SNR is only 105dB, you aren't really even using the 20 bit range.

Now, as I said, there is more to converters than just the noise spec. For example, there is jitter, the quality of the anti-aliasing filter, the quality of the analog front end. But it's hard to tell all those from specs (except jitter, if given). The Firepod could well be better on account of those criteria, but those are not related to bit depth per se.
 
As always, mshilarious has given you very informed advice. 20 bits is enough to do quality conversion, if properly designed. I have a Yamaha 03D, and if they're the same converters (they probably are) then I think they sound quite good. Those would be the same converters that were in the 02R, on which many records were recorded and mixed including a grammy winning James Taylor record.
 
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