16 bit vs. 24 bit

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dr.colossus

dr.colossus

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can any one tell the difference between a 16 bit and 24 bit recording? i've had guys who sell 16 bit telling me there is no huge diffence and cds are 16 bit any way, and then those guys that sell 24 bit telling me that its much better going 24 then bringing it down to 16 bit for the cd......oh by the way i am speaking in regard to digital multitrackers...
 
Yo Doc:

I'm not an expert but I do have the Yamaha DAW 2816 which I am attempting to figure out. It can do the 24 bit stuff but the CD industry standard is 16 bits.

As far as I can figure it out from what the folks say on this site, 24 bit is a bigger sound footprint and even though it must ultimately come down to 16 bit for CD burning, it does a better job even after the conversion. I don't want to get technical because I'm not qualified but Bruce or Sonusman or many other folks can explain it that way if you need that explanation.

So, if you can record at 24 bit, you have an advantage; if you can only do 16 bit, you can still make good CD's.

By the way, do have a Ph.D?

Or, a medical degree?

Or, neither?


Green Hornet







:D :p :p
 
hehehehe, if i had a medical degree you sure as hell wouldn't want to be on the operating table.... and i'd have a phd if they gave them out for bad hair and drinking beer...
 
The bit depth is how many steps you have for altering the sound, the frequencie is how many times those steps are updated/sec
yes - it's best to keep your files 24/96 as long as you're processing them. And remember dudes - the old story about "digital processing=no loss" is a lie - everytime you process your file, it dies a little, gets a little colder
bizz
 
Yo Bizzaro:

Kind of like a mother-in-law's kiss?

Green Hornet
 
16 bit is current standard.

I have many opinions about this very subject. The fact of the matter is that 24 bit is way better, its around 3 times more information from a total bit standpoint. The real benefit is that the more bits the better signal to noise ratios and increased dynamic range. 16 bits is around 96db verses 144bd for 24 bit. You are always going to be better off at higher bit depths because of the mathmatical accuracy of the processing in the digital realm. There is a push for 24 bit CD's as a new standard, which takes advantage of the DVD market compatibility. 24 Bit needs to at this point, be down concerted to 16 bit in which there are software and products available to help you do that. If your going to be serious about competing with the market standards and have your music radio and mass duplication ready, then get into 24bit and stay there even up to the point of renting or purchasing a Masterlink to make 24 bit pre-masters of your mix then have a Mastering House down convert it by the best methods available, or if affordable get a Sony CDRW33 or 66 which has dithering capabilities(SBM).
If your a home enthusiast looking to just get by, I would still move into the 24 bit realm if financially feasible. At least move into 20 bit as a absolute minimum, where the s/n ratios are near 120 db, the lower the noise floor the better right.

Peace,
Dennis
 
I was struggling with this same question a while ago. Thanx guys.

Club Zero
 
I need to do a search on this site because I know Ed or Bruce explained the difference of 16 bit vs 24 bit. And I think the amount of bit grows exponentially. So... if that is true, then there is a humongous amount of bit depth you would miss if you opted for 16 bit instead of 24 bit.

I'm going to do the search to find the thread...

peace...

spin
 
This is half the answer.
The bit resolution is the range of amplitues recorded. Im fairly certain it does grow exponentualy. I do know that 16-bit gives 65000 differet amplituedes. Hope that helped a bit.
 
Simply put, recording digital audio involves;

1......the Sampling Rate(how many times a second a sample is taken). According to the Nyquist Theorem the sampling rate must be twice the highest frequency. Therefore to sample a frequency of say 5000Hz, it must be sampled at 10000 times/second.
CD quality is 44100 samples per second.

2.......bit depth is the amplitude resolution, and without going into a whole lecture on bits, etc., CD quality=16bit or 65536 possibilities, 24bit is approx., 16777000 possible values. Something like 256 times the difference.

To the human ear, well who knows...........

Peace........ChrisO :cool:
 
Colossus - there's a huge difference between 16-bit and 24-bit in terms of how much data can get recorded - it makes it way easier to record without either noise or clipping, for instance. In terms of whether you can hear the difference or not: yeah, you can hear it, but it's not huge. The 16-bit sound is kinda grainy or rough compared to the smoothness of the 24-bit sound. Go for 24-bit if you're trying to get the sound as good as you can.
 
How much more strain does 24 bit put on your proccesor and RAM, ie more reasources taken up by plug-ins?
 
I don't think plugins apply when you're recording, but I could be wrong.

Anyway, 24-bit takes up more CPU resources than 16-bit, of course. But I recorded two tracks at a time in 24-bit with a VERY slow and RAM-challenged computer, and it worked most of the time.

I think bouncing your sample rate up to 96 KHz makes a huge difference, though.
 
nyway, 24-bit takes up more CPU resources than 16-bit, of course
Click to expand...
not obligatory! Most of computers are G3, G4 or Pentium derivatives and these are ALL 32 bit computers. Since there is no speed difference in a 16 bit multiply/division and the 32 bit analogon there is no speed difference for the cpu. Even the memory usage doesnt differ, because the information is in most cases bound to the memory edges - and this is 4 byte for all the cpu's mentioned above.
The only difference is the need of disc ressources - 150% compared to 16 bit, but with modern hdd's this wont be the bottleneck, i guess.

btw: most sequencers/recording sw internally work with 32 bit (some hw-based units like digidesign and pulsar yet uses 64 bit for internal representation)
 
The exponent is the bit depth and the base number is 2, a one and a zero. Look this analogy, take a picture that was made at the 24 bit depth, and truncate or dither it down to 16 on your favorite software. The clarity is obvious. For the most part Its the difference between a 256 color monitor and 16 million color monitor. I think this is the simplifies math, someone better check this for accuracy, math is not my strong point.

2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2=16 bit (65536)

2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2=24 bit (16,777,216)

bit sample mono stereo Total Bits per second
24 X 44,100 = 1058400 x 2 = 2,116,800/8(8 bits to a byte) = 264,600 bytes per second x 60 for a minutes worth is:
15.8 Megabytes per stereo minute.


10.6 Mb for 16/44.1

34.6 Mb for 24/96.0

69.1 Mb for 24/192 Wow thats almost 3 gigs for a stereo recording for a 4 minute song...

So whats than on a 24 track digital multitrack? When are the Terabyte hardrives going on sale?


Analog has less math Bruce :0)


Peace,
Dennis
 
Hi Dennis!

Your picture is fine, but additionally imagine:
10.6 Mb for 16/44.1
Click to expand...
as you correctly calculated and

15,9 Mb for a minute with 24bit/44.1kHz who gives you a 256 times better resolution per channel.

imagine this: an absolut hot 16 bit recording (0dB peak) has a lower accuracy then a 24 bit recording with -48dbU
(since [dbU] = 20*log(v1/v2) => 20*log(1/256)=-48.2)

Adding 1 and 1 shows us the space needed on your harddisk. 100 minutes of a 20 track recording results in:

.) 10.6 Gigabyte for 16bit/44.1 kHz
and
.) 15.9 Gigabyte for 24bit/44.1 kHz


Believe me (if my calculations were correct - i've finished university looong ago) - these few bucks are a good investment...
 
It's all done with mirrors and maths.

Ultimately, there is an advantage with using 24bit regardless of what the current CD Standard is. BUT you must remember that everyone will hear things a bit differently and also 24bit is likely to be superceded in the not too distant future and we will all be arguing about the next step up in digital recording.:D

Peace......ChrisO :cool:
 
and also 24bit is likely to be superceded in the not too distant future
Click to expand...
I think this will need a few years - cause first our converters have to do their job fine with REAL 24 bit. The digital 24 bit result is nonsens if the noise of the converter let the least significant bit jump around like cracy.
But nevertheless - once we are in a digital box and you process your track with a DAW, 24bit calculations adds significant less wrong information to the signal.
greets,
Mark
 
My personal opinion is that the recording industry is already in the transition for total 24 bit. The consumer is a different story though. When you have already spent alot of money on cd players and even a DVD player, adding a 3rd format with considerably higher prices for the equipment is a steep uphill battle. The only way to over come that hill is by pushing the 24 bit into DVD compatible audio without the added cost of lets say a surround 5.1 DVD-A disk. Right now I think the DVD-A players are still above $1000. Im starting to see more 24 Bit DAT decks showing up in catelogs this last month or two, but they are still pricey. All AD/DA converters have problems with the LSB, did you know that the performance of a converter is usually less than spec'd. A typical converter is usually 1 or 2 bits less because of the LSB being effected by changes in temperature, kinda like schroedingers cat. The thing Im wondering about, if we move the consumers into 24 bit formats, will changes in the frequency response for speakers have to be changed? Im sure most of you understand the effects of harmonics on root frequencies, that the physical interactions of sound waves create phenomina that our ears can tune into, but not as a direct wave form. How about responses in the 15Hz to 28KZ, will the monitors we trusted before be as good when a wider range is put through them? What about the cost of CD-R for PC based burners for 24 bit cd's, are there any? I think right now the DVD-A and the SACD burners are expensive, I cant think of any system off hand that handles any of this in a standard format?

Thoughts, Comments, Flames and Ideas?



Peace,
Dennis
 
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