Bitrate

F

fazil

New member
Is the difference between 16bit and 24bit so audible ? I've heard several opinions on it but never understood why it would, as I (and i guess most people) burn it to cd afterwards. I'd like to get some more info about this :) if my question has been asked a thousand times before, i must say that it must've a long time ago as i can't find many posts on that subject. :D

ps, i do know what bitrate means and i know what it does but i just don't have many experience yet...

Greetz
-fazil
 
This is discussed in so many places I will not bother re-describing it, I just want to point out a misnomer: it's bit depth, or bit size -- there's no such thing as bit rate. A rate is how much there is of something over time. 16-bit or 24-bit audio means that a single digital audio sample is represented with a 16-bit or a 24-bit number.

Here's some reading that might help:

http://www.transom.org/tools/basics/200207.digitalbasics.html
http://archive.keyboardonline.com/features/bitwars/bitwars.shtml
http://www.digitalprosound.com/Htm/Articles/April/Trunc_vs_Dither.htm
 
In addition to what Al pointed out...

The term bitrate applies ONLY to compressed audio/video formats such as MP3s or REAL video...

It represent the number of bits transferred per second.

It has NOTHING to do with word size of digital audio.
 
if I record it hot at 16 bit (fullfil 16 of 16 bits), is that the same as recording it not so hot (fullfilling 16 of 24 bits) at 24 bit?
 
Fazil...One thing, as I understand it...It's not so much about the sound as it's more important with processing audio, when recording, mixing, mastering....24 bit contains more data than 16 bit there for there's more data that's able to be processed, therefor finer, more acurate processing....Makes sence don't it...
 
BlueBear's right, that use of bitrate is correct, it's essentially the same kind of measurement as used for modems and network connections, though the common term in those discussions is baud rate.
 
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