Dithering Techniques

[Chime13]

I would like to know if there is a "rule of thumb" for dithering. I'm using a Delta66 with Vegas Pro, so aquiring at 96/24 is possible, but to my limited knowledge, most editors out there, ie. Sound Forge 4.5 max out at 16bits and mastering to cd drops everything to 44/16. Any info?
Chime13

 

[dobro]

The rule of thumb seems to be to do everything at the highest res possible, and then as a final step, dither down to 16-bit for burning to CD. Sound Forge does it all at 16-bit, yes, but that's one big way in which Cool Edit is superior to SF.