--- In Marinos Koutsomichalis <=
.> wrote:
> recordign @ 24bit is a different thing than recording in 96Khz
> and I would suggest that recording @ 24bit does have a significant
> advantage for nature recording
>
> as it guarantees wider dynamic range
>
> Say you record @ 16bit,
> you need to be as close to the 0db as possible so you can ensure the
> highest resolution, but this also means you may clip on peaks, if you =
> lower the volume then you also loose resolutions -> that means that
> some quiet sounds may not be recorded
> When recording @ 24bits
> practically you no longer need to worry about these things
> as you have enough headroom
> so there is a great advantage for all types of recordings
Of course, I'm aware of these dynamic range issues in theory...
However, what I meant is that the dynamic range that is present in most nat=
ural environments is surprisingly low. Note that the sound level at the mic=
rophone position will seldom exceed 70 dB. Then subtract the self noise lev=
el of the microphone of about 10 dB and you would get a maximum dynamic ran=
ge of 60 dB. The 16 bit format can already cover a theoretic dynamic range =
of 96 dB. So, there would be still plenty head and foot room to preserve th=
e dynamics of the original sounds. It should also be noted that the inheren=
t noise floor of the microphone should be about 20 dB higher than the quant=
ization noise floor of the sound file in order to reliable mask the (ugly) =
quantization noise. So, if you adjust the gain on your recorder in such a w=
ay that the microphone noise floor safely masks the quantization noise floo=
r, you could still record sound levels of at least 80 dB without clipping a=
nd without introducing additional noise. And 80 dB is quite loud. A long te=
rm exposure of a human to 78 dB can already cause hearing damage (http://e=
n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_pressure).
Another issue that is often overlooked is that the 24 bit format option on =
most recorders provides only a relatively small increase of dynamic range c=
ompared to 16 bit. I guess that this improvement is in the range between 10=
and 20 dB even on the most expensive recorders that are available today.
In any case, a recorder dynamic range of 114 dB
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