At 3:30 PM +0000 5/15/07, Raimund Specht wrote:
>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.
Raimund--
SD's example of -40dB saturation closely resembles sound files that I
and others bring home including recordings of nocturnal mammals and a
great variety of remote spaces. The peak background ambience level in
the the FR2-LE field recording Curt recently posted, for example,
measures -48dB. I feel that nature recording involves many interests
and contexts and a good number of those routinely involve sound
pressures low enough to merit this particular advantage of 24 bit
recording.
For those who might wish to listen to Sound Devices excellent
comparison, their tests are available here:
24 bit -40 dB down:
http://www.sounddevices.com/download/sound/24-bit-low-gain.mp3
16 bit -40 dB down:
http://www.sounddevices.com/download/sound/16-bit-low-gain.mp3
The above two files intercut:
http://www.uwm.edu/~type/audio-reports/LowSaturation/AudioClips/16vs24bit-4=
Message: 0dBCompare.
Subject: mp3
Rob D.
Rob D.
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