the 24 bit V.S. 16 bit war!!!!! who won?????

[czar of bizarre]

this has been discussed MANY times on this bbs. i think it will NEVER end but i need to HEAR and READ something.

not too long ago someone started a thread and they said they would test 16 bit and 24 bit recordings. if im not mistaking the thread starter was pro 16 bit (i could be wrong). does ANYONE have the link to this thread? i cant seem to find it but i read it a month or so back. i did a search on this site and nothing popped up.

16 or 24 how about 32?



czar


ps i would appreciate it if someone could direct me to that thread.....thanx

[Downside Studio]

24 is better than 16. But if you can't do the job at 16, don't even botter with going to 24.

If you can do it at 32 you're ahaid of your time.

[littledog]

Bit depth refers to the smallest possible increments of volume change in a digital system. The bits refer to powers of 2.

A simple one bit system , for instance would have "2 to the 1st power" (sorry, don't know how to do exponents) possible levels. Since "2 to the 1st power" = 2, that means a 1 bit system would consist of audio that was either completely silent, or as loud as the system could handle - nothing in between.(Not very musical!)

So, a 2 bit system would be "2 to the 2nd power" or four levels of volume: Zero, medium-low, medium- high, and full volume. (Still not very musical!)

The higher the bit depth the more gradations of volume you get. Thus, a 16 bit system has "2 to the 16th power" amount of levels between total silence and the very loudest sounds. That comes to over 65,000 little slices of the volume spectrum. Sounds like a lot, and it is. That's why CDs sound pretty damn good.

But the human ear is an incredibly sensitive mechanism. If we upgrade to a 24 bit system (2 to the 24th power) it means that we are going to subdivide the smallest available volume increment in our 16 bit system another 256 times! And you know what? Most of us can flat out hear that difference - we hear better stereo imaging, smoother fades, less grainy reverb tails, etc. With 24 bit we also get an overall increase in dynamic range, which means you can record at lower levels without worrying about approaching the noise floor.

Now, this discussion is assuming equivalent hardware quality, which is not always the case. It is possible to buy "cheap" 24 bit systems that sound crappier than good 16 bit systems, because of clocking, converters, filters, etc. So "24 bit" by itself is not necessarily a guarantee of a superior system.

The final question usually asked is: why bother recording at 24 bit if it's all going to end up on a sixteen bit CD anyway?

The details may have to be in another post (I'm wiped!) but the short answer is it is always better to record and mix at a higher bit depth, and then reduce to 16 bits at the mastering stage, than to do the whole project at 16 bits. The long discussion will involve concepts like dithering and rounding errors... but, sorry, it will have to be another day... zzzzzzz

[Dave52]

That was just great LittleDog. That is the best explanation of 16/24 bit that I've heard in a long old time. Well, I have my feet planted squarly in the 16bit world (I went for the Fostex VF160). And what I'm doing is sounding just great, and all a great price..!

Dave.

[Mizchif]

i agree
that was a great post
I myself don't really know to much about bits and stuf fliek that
I just try to record at and work with the highest possible levels i can
but now I see whyand how it works
which totally makes sense

isn't 24 bit dvd quality?

[heylow]

Have you ever read any of Nika's stuff over at Prosoundweb? He seems quite knowledgable and there are many HEATED digital debates over there you might find interesting, if not exhausting.

Its even been debated that 24 is king but that any higher would not really be of much help because the biggest dif between 16 and 24 is how much dynamic range is achieved. Most applications would never need more dynamic range while recording.

I'm no expert on any of it....go check it out though if you REALLY want to understand bits. I dont like hyping another forum here but for someone who wants digital debates...thats the place to be!!


heylow

[littledog]

I'm down with that! Nika is a wonderful resource.