32 bit USB Sound Card?

[JordanMaycock]

Hello,

I am looking to buy a number of sound cards. I am not sure if I am satisfied with recording with 16 bit cards. Does anyone know which model Sound Cards can record in 32 bit? And where to find them? I can get the 16 bit ones for £1.50/around $3.00. Are the 32 bit ones a lot more expensive? thankyou

 

[mshilarious]

There is no such thing as a 32 bit converter. Well, I am aware of one, but it doesn't actually have greater than 24 bit resolution, so it's a bit of a marketing ploy.

Try shopping for a 24 bit USB interface . . .

 

[TimOBrien]

Starter guide

 

[Dawfreak]

There is no such thing as a 32 bit converter. Well, I am aware of one, but it doesn't actually have greater than 24 bit resolution, so it's a bit of a marketing ploy.

Try shopping for a 24 bit USB interface . . .

Aggreed.
all interfaces and sound cards for DAW use comes with 24bit.

 

[Ethan Winer]

There is no such thing as a 32 bit converter. Well, I am aware of one, but it doesn't actually have greater than 24 bit resolution, so it's a bit of a marketing ploy.

Actually, 20 bits is closer to what you actually get. But the ambient noise in most home studios limits the total resolution to more like 12 or 13 bits at best. Using a 16-bit sound card is never the limiting factor in the quality of one's home studio productions.

--Ethan

 

[dgatwood]

Actually, 20 bits is closer to what you actually get. But the ambient noise in most home studios limits the total resolution to more like 12 or 13 bits at best. Using a 16-bit sound card is never the limiting factor in the quality of one's home studio productions.

I strongly disagree. Yes, you probably only get 12-13 bits between your acoustic noise floor and your acoustic peaks, but that doesn't mean you'll get the same quality if you record at 16-bit resolution. If you have 13 bits of effective acoustic SNR, this means you'd better precisely place your highest peaks in the narrow range between -18 dBFS and 0 dBFS. Higher and you get clipping. Lower and you have less than 13 bits of digital precision. Thus, outside that range, you will have easily audible quality loss at 16-bit resolution. Using 24-bit resolution for recording means that you don't have to set your levels so accurately to avoid loss of precision.

Regarding 32-bit depth, though, as others have said, 32-bit recording is useless. A 32-bit signal is generally 32 bits worth of floating point precision, which has a usable range that is very similar to that of 24-bit integer data, with greater precision in the middle of the range. What this means, from a practical perspective, is that 32-bit floating-point data doesn't provide any real benefit as a tracking format. It is typically used as an intermediate format during processing to avoid the need to adjust the gain staging at the output of every plug-in in your effect chain.

BTW, if you're looking at USB interfaces in the $3 range, don't expect much in terms of sound quality. You get what you pay for.

 

[wheelema]

Sony Sound Forge Audio Studio 10 is showing 32 bit (IEEE float) as an option when used with the Sound Devices USBPre 2 but I've never selected it. Why? 192k/24 is massive overkill.

 

[oretez]

you still would not be recording as a 32 bit floating point process. PCM A/D conversion is an integer process. The theoretic limits of 24 bit (integer) conversion pretty much exceed the practical limits of any analog chain feeding the converters. So? Converters with greater then 24 bit depth can't really serve any useful purpose.