[D. Lundberg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xel'Naga /img/forum/go_quote.gif I guess a few pictures will show the difference. Musical Fidelity V-DAC, waveform of undithered 1kHz sinewave at –90.31dBFS, CD data (left channel blue, right red).

Did you miss the word "undithered"?

Quote:

Bottom of the line, the more bits you have the bettter you can represent the sample amplitude, which is a real number.

If the signal is properly dithered the complete signal, including the amplitude, can be accurately represented (thanks to the Nyquist theorem).

"[...] if the quantisation is performed using the right dither, then the only consequence of the digitisation is effectively the addition of a white,
uncorrelated, benign, random noise floor. The level of the noise depends on the number of the bits in the channel – and that is that!"
-- J. Robert Stuart, Coding High Quality Digital Audio, Meridian Audio Ltd.

More bits -> less quantization errors -> lower noise floor -> higher dynamic range.

Quote:

Consider how this picture would look with 1 bit depth and then with 16. With 16, the difference between the digital representation and the red sine wave would be invisible to the naked eye at this scale.

It's not about what it looks like, but about what it represents.
Using 1 bit means you have a very limited dynamic range (roughly 6dB), but if you have plenty of bandwidth you can move most of the noise above 20kHz (noise shaping). That's how DSD/SACD and Delta/Sigma-converters work.

 

[Justice Strike]

Quote:

Originally Posted by D. Lundberg /img/forum/go_quote.gif Did you miss the word "undithered"? "[...] if the quantisation is performed using the right dither, then the only consequence of the digitisation is effectively the addition of a white, uncorrelated, benign, random noise floor. The level of the noise depends on the number of the bits in the channel – and that is that!" -- J. Robert Stuart, Coding High Quality Digital Audio, Meridian Audio Ltd. More bits -> less quantization errors -> lower noise floor -> higher dynamic range.

higher dynamic range or higher resolution, it's a choice.


Quote:

It's not about what it looks like, but about what it represents. Using 1 bit means you have a very limited dynamic range (roughly 6dB)

how do you figure that? why not 3? or 2 db or 50 db? who says that 1 bit only represents 6 db of dynamic range?

I'll tell you a little secret. I can encode 100db in one bit.


Quote:

but if you have plenty of bandwidth you can move most of the noise above 20kHz (noise shaping). That's how DSD/SACD and Delta/Sigma-converters work.

that made absolutely no sense to me what so ever. You are mixing up technologies.

 

[Justice Strike]

Quote:

Originally Posted by D. Lundberg /img/forum/go_quote.gif Did you miss the word "undithered"? "[...] if the quantisation is performed using the right dither, then the only consequence of the digitisation is effectively the addition of a white, uncorrelated, benign, random noise floor. The level of the noise depends on the number of the bits in the channel – and that is that!" -- J. Robert Stuart, Coding High Quality Digital Audio, Meridian Audio Ltd. More bits -> less quantization errors -> lower noise floor -> higher dynamic range.

higher dynamic range or higher resolution, it's a choice.


Quote:

It's not about what it looks like, but about what it represents. Using 1 bit means you have a very limited dynamic range (roughly 6dB)

how do you figure that? why not 3? or 2 db or 50 db? who says that 1 bit only represents 6 db of dynamic range?

I'll tell you a little secret. I can encode 100db in one bit.


Quote:

but if you have plenty of bandwidth you can move most of the noise above 20kHz (noise shaping). That's how DSD/SACD and Delta/Sigma-converters work.

that made absolutely no sense to me what so ever. You are mixing up technologies.

 

[Justice Strike]

Quote:

Originally Posted by D. Lundberg /img/forum/go_quote.gif Did you miss the word "undithered"? "[...] if the quantisation is performed using the right dither, then the only consequence of the digitisation is effectively the addition of a white, uncorrelated, benign, random noise floor. The level of the noise depends on the number of the bits in the channel – and that is that!" -- J. Robert Stuart, Coding High Quality Digital Audio, Meridian Audio Ltd. More bits -> less quantization errors -> lower noise floor -> higher dynamic range.

higher dynamic range or higher resolution, it's a choice.


Quote:

It's not about what it looks like, but about what it represents. Using 1 bit means you have a very limited dynamic range (roughly 6dB)

how do you figure that? why not 3? or 2 db or 50 db? who says that 1 bit only represents 6 db of dynamic range?

I'll tell you a little secret. I can encode 100db in one bit.


Quote:

but if you have plenty of bandwidth you can move most of the noise above 20kHz (noise shaping). That's how DSD/SACD and Delta/Sigma-converters work.

that made absolutely no sense to me what so ever. You are mixing up technologies.

 

[D. Lundberg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justice Strike /img/forum/go_quote.gif higher dynamic range or higher resolution, it's a choice.

It's not a choice, it's the same thing! The "resolution" is just a statistical measure of the amount of quantization errors you'll get in addition to the signal.
The errors can either be correlated (distortion) or not correlated (white noise) to the signal. And if the signal is properly dithered you'll get the second type of errors, and thus white noise.

So the (statistical) resolution determines the noise floor and dynamic range, nothing more.

Quote:

how do you figure that? why not 3? or 2 db or 50 db? who says that 1 bit only represents 6 db of dynamic range?

From the amount of quantization steps involved.
If Q is the number of quantization steps and D is the dynamic range:

Q = 2^(D/6), or D = 6 Log[size=xx-small]2[/size] Q

1 bit = 2 quantization steps = 6 dB of dynamic range.
16 bits = 65536 quantization steps = 96 dB of dynamic range.

That is of course only the total statistical dynamic range. In practice it can vary depending on sample rate, type of dither used, noise shaping, etc.

Quote:

I'll tell you a little secret. I can encode 100db in one bit.

Of course you can, if you use noise shaping and have high bandwidth.
You still have the same amount of noise, you just move large amounts of it to higher frequencies.

Quote:

that made absolutely no sense to me what so ever. You are mixing up technologies.

It's the same technology, just different implementations.

 

[Justice Strike]

Quote:

Originally Posted by D. Lundberg /img/forum/go_quote.gif It's not a choice, it's the same thing! The "resolution" is just a statistical measure of the amount of quantization errors you'll get in addition to the signal.

nevermind... no use discussing this with you.

 

[D. Lundberg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justice Strike /img/forum/go_quote.gif nevermind... no use discussing this with you.

Sorry you feel that way, I just don't see how anything I wrote could be that upsetting. It's was just basic stuff you could find in any entry-level book on digital audio.

 

[googleborg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by majkel /img/forum/go_quote.gif 6) It's not dynamics killing people and affecting hearing but sound pressure with the given numbers of 140dB = pain, 160~180dB = death

cool!

 

[Justice Strike]

Quote:

Originally Posted by D. Lundberg /img/forum/go_quote.gif Sorry you feel that way, I just don't see how anything I wrote could be that upsetting. It's was just basic stuff you could find in any entry-level book on digital audio.

i've tried to explain that you can have more resolution with 24 bit sound and that therefore you can do much better postprocessing (such as compression). This is just a fact. You seem to keep repeating the same stuff without really acknowledging this fact. There is little use in discussing if there is no way our stances are coming togheter even a little bit.

BTW i'm not upset, i just don't have the time to get into a circular argumentation.

 

[xnor]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justice Strike /img/forum/go_quote.gif i've tried to explain that you can have more resolution with 24 bit sound and that therefore you can do much better postprocessing (such as compression). This is just a fact. You seem to keep repeating the same stuff without really acknowledging this fact. There is little use in discussing if there is no way our stances are coming togheter even a little bit. BTW i'm not upset, i just don't have the time to get into a circular argumentation.

The very first post of this endless thread already told us so, why do you have to repeat this? I don't think anyone said that that is wrong.

 

[D. Lundberg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justice Strike /img/forum/go_quote.gif i've tried to explain that you can have more resolution with 24 bit sound and that therefore you can do much better postprocessing (such as compression). This is just a fact.

Yes, and nobody has argued otherwise.
24, 32 or 64 bits are usually used when processing digital audio.
It's because every time you process the signal you add noise, and you use the extra bits as headroom to keep the noise floor low in the final version.

 

[parrot5]

Quote:

Originally Posted by D. Lundberg /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yes, and nobody has argued otherwise. 24, 32 or 64 bits are usually used when processing digital audio. It's because every time you process the signal you add noise, and you use the extra bits as headroom to keep the noise floor low in the final version.

So 24-bit playback makes sense for people who use EQ or other digital manipulation then

 

[slytown]

We can't hear the difference between 24 and 16 but I remember hearing that we can feel the difference. Is that right?

 

[grawk]

if something used all 24 bits, and you played it so you could hear the quietest parts, you could definitely hear the difference, until you went deaf 3 seconds later

 

[xnor]

Quote:

Originally Posted by grawk /img/forum/go_quote.gif if something used all 24 bits, and you played it so you could hear the quietest parts, you could definitely hear the difference, until you went deaf 3 seconds later

what a Moment of Glory