[paaj]

There are a lot of analogies to think of, like photoshop:
it's better to take a high-resolution photo for your image editing, because you have more detail to work with, and the small errors that always occur are unnoticeable on the lower resolution result.

In audio, the amount of bits basically comes down to the level of the 'noise floor', 16bit has a noise floor 96dB below the maximum level, 24bit is even higher. If you want to handle effects, volume control etc, the extra bits make sure that any rounding error will be unnoticeable. 24bit remastered is 'good', because any computing errors added in the remastering process (often based on the 16bit CD?) will be well below the detail level that a CD player can provide. (think of the old calculators, where 1/3 * 3 was not always 1!, with 1bit resolution it is 0, with 2bits it's 0.25, with 4bits it is 0.375. ) The more bits the more accurate the signal gets, with the 16bit, those rounding errors occur at 96dB below maximum sound level.

anyway, I'm sort of rambling now, read around and of course: use your Wiki/Google skills.

 

[librarian]

I still don't get why 24 bit recordings should sound so much better that 16 bit recordings, when stored on the cd media, that can only hold 16 bit. It's just not logical. The resolution will be better, but the difference is only 2 bits), right?

Just like in the analogie above: a high resolution picture will not look better on a bad screen... A good anologie, btw. Very pedagocical.

I understand, that 24 bit recordings in principle are a better or easier material to work with. But it's not better per se. Theres just more room for errors to occur. Same errors, that could be harmless for the 24 bit recording, could be fatal for the 16 bit recording. Right?

 

[Roseval]

24-16=8

 

[paaj]

It just that if you record/edit in 16bit, the errors actually get on the disc, with 24bit they won't. I think Dan Lavry explained it somewhere how there is no step between 16 or 24bit, so 24bit is the better choice. We could do with 20 (or even 17), but the way a PC works you get the extra bits for 'free' because there are 8 bits in one byte.

And yes, a high res picture will not look better on a crappy screen, but when you want to combine multiple pictures it makes sense to do it in higher quality so you don't lose information in the process that you may actually need, even on the crappy screen.

 

[librarian]

I ended up ordering a v-dac. I hope it will have good synergy with the WA2!