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4. Re: 24 bit vs. 16 bit

Subject: 4. Re: 24 bit vs. 16 bit
From: "Raimund Specht" animalsounds
Date: Tue May 15, 2007 8:32 am ((PDT))
Hi Rob,

In my experience, there is still no real advantage for recording at
24 bit in the field. The SoundDevices example is not surprising to
me. If one records in 16 bit at an extremely low level of -40 dBFS,
the quantization noise will of course become audible after
normalization. To me, this it not a real-world example that applies
to nature recording. Yes, it is true that the SD preamplifiers and
A/D converters can provide a dymnanic range that exceeds 16 bits
(which is indeed not the case for all 24 bit recorders). But that
large dynamic range is simply not required in the field...

Regards,
Raimund


--- In  Rob Danielson <>
wrote:
>
> At 7:24 AM +0000 5/15/07, Raimund Specht wrote:
> >But that would probably open another can of worms, which could
> >further damage a few more illusions on the latest developments in
> >audio technology. So, I should better shut up
> >for now ;-)
> >
> >Raimund
>
> Hi Raimund--
>
> I see more consistency than disagreement.
>
> I believe there is pretty strong consensus that audible quality
> differences between fully saturated 16 and 24 bit sound files are
> minimal. It seems to me that your discussions of 8 bit recording
and
> mp3 encoding are examples of the advantages of of robust file
> saturation as well.
>
> There are recordists on the list, a good percentage of whom record
in
> sparser, northern environments who routinely bring home much
> "thinner" recordings with more air and ambience than recordings
made
> nearer the tropics. More and more of these recordists have been
> observing the reduced noise advantage of recording quiet locations
at
> 24 bits and experiencing more efficient filtering and other digital
> processing in post. The Sound Devices comparison appears to provide
> strong evidence in support of the first of these observations. As
> yet, I've not read a challenge to the low saturation observation
that
> takes SD's 16 bit and 24 bit -40dB examples into consideration, so
> there's a good chance we have consensus on this point as well. :-)
> Rob D.
>






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