if sound card is 16bit but info is 24/96 then....

[jugalo180]

a good question for the sound card experts

i know that i can't record in 24/96, but if i had a sample cd, and i exported the samples into cubase, and it was set to 24/96 recording, would and i saved, or rendered the file within that program. would it be a 24/96 quality file? i understand that the card controlls what comes in, but does it also controll the internall processing of audio data? another example would be. if someone sent me a vocal track via ftp that was still in 24/96 would i be able to edit it and save it in cubase or any other program that is offering me the 24/96 bit save option, or will it be automatically dithered to 16/44? thank you

 

[Track Rat]

You could render but you couldn't play back a sampling rate that your card didn't support. If your sound card only supported 16/44.1, it would truncate the 24 bits to 16 but the 44.1 clock couldn't deal with the differing sample rate. But you should be able to open up a 24/96 file in a program that supported it and render it (re-sample and dither down) to a sample rate the card did support.

 

[jugalo180]

You could render but you couldn't play back a sampling rate that your card didn't spt

now, i think i understand what you are saying. are you saying that my card wouldn't play back that 24/96 file? okay, i'm trying to mix down this song before my 24/96 card comes but i want it to have all of the 24 bits for quality wise.
now if i have this project in cubase set for 24/96 record but i don't record i just do the mixing of some samples from a sample disk, which is already dithered to 16bit. will the card be doing real time mixing in 16bit or 24, if the project is set for 24? if the answer is 16bit, then a 24/96 card advantage over a 16bit would only be it's ability to record live sound at a higher bitrate, thus enhancing it's ovarall quality, but it would perform the same on mixing pre recorded tracks?

example, i take a cd with loop samples and create a beat. i do this on two different machines. one machine has a soundblaster 16bit, and the other has a echo layla 24bit. i mix each song on each machine in the same program, let's say vegas video. will the 24bit card do better effects processing via plugins than the 16bit or will they be on neutral ground since nothing has been recorded live?