[metroidfox]

A friend and I are arguing about whether or not there is any hardware which truly outputs 24 bit on the market right now. Are there any external dacs, or even in-computer cards which do full hardware 24 bit output of audio?

His claim is that the x-fi also does 24 bit by upconverting through software. Is this true?

Thanks.

 

[thomaspf]

For digital output all sound cards that I know let you indeed output your data at 24 bits.

I regularly play back 24 bit 96 Khz music track in my home system.

There is more and more music available in that format for PC audio users. In the past this was mostly limited to 24/96 PCM tracks on video DVDs from Classic Records, Hirez music, Chesky, or AIX records but now you start seeing download sites that offer 24bit tracks (Linn Records, Gimmel Records, hidef tape transfers, etc. etc.)

Cheers

Thomas

 

[metroidfox]

Thanks for the reply. I looked up some quick specifications on integrated audio chips, and they indeed do have the support for 24-bit audio. Is this full hardware support though, or is there some software magic happening in the background?

Also, if integrated audio now supports 24-bit/96 Khz playback, is there really a difference between integrated chips and dedicated cards? (NOTE: I am asking specifically about a bits difference, not a difference in component quality, background noise, amplification, or what have you.)

Thank you again.

 

[Rempert]

In principle, 24 bit sound is more the exception than the rule in soundcards by now. But in order to get real world results that take advantage of all 24 bits, you need about 145db signal-to-noise ratio through the whole chain. I think it is highly unlikely that any of us have that, and of course you would need either extremely loud music or an extremely quiet listening room to take advantage of it if you did. And of course, 24 bit music sources...

 

[gregorio]

There is no such thing as a 24bit DAC, although manufacturers will have you believe otherwise. As Rampert says, 24bit is defined as having 144dB dynamic range, the only difference between 24bit and 16bit is that 16bit has a dynamic range of 96dB, although with certain techniques during the mastering phase it can have a dynamic range of up to 120dB. Even if you own the finest "24bit" DAC on the planet it will not have a dynamic range of more than 120dB and is likely to have a dynamic range between 100dB - 110dB. So the best "24bit" DAC on the market is in reality no more than a 20bit DAC and probably more like an 18bit DAC.

Bare in mind that you wouldn't be able to use the full dynamic range of a true 24bit DAC even if it existed, because this exceeds the capabilities of the human ear! 24bit is nothing more than a marketing gimmick as far as consumers are concerned. Even the most dynamic music on the market (symphonic recordings) rarely exceed 60dB dynamic range, which could be perfectly encoded using about 12bits.

 

[thomaspf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gregorio Thanks for the reply. I looked up some quick specifications on integrated audio chips, and they indeed do have the support for 24-bit audio. Is this full hardware support though, or is there some software magic happening in the background? Also, if integrated audio now supports 24-bit/96 Khz playback, is there really a difference between integrated chips and dedicated cards? (NOTE: I am asking specifically about a bits difference, not a difference in component quality, background noise, amplification, or what have you.) Thank you again.

Hi,

the differences between built-in and dedicated sound cards are outside your interest for 24 bit digital output. There is no magic at all. If your software sends 24bit samples the soundcard will output 24 bit samples. There is, however, not that much native 24 bit output available.

Many music player application allow the conversion of 16 bit music samples into 24 bit samples and conversion of the sample frequency from lets say 44.1Khz to 96 Khz. There are a lot of ongoing debates whether this so called upsampling has any benefit to the sound quality but these conversions are independent from the 24 bit support on sound cards.

Higher end DACs like the Universal Audio 2192 claim dynamic ranges of 122db which is a bit more than 20bits of actual resolution. Whether you can actually discern a difference between a 16 bit or 24 bit signal depends on a lot of factors including most prominently your ears. See the ongoing 16 vs. 24 bit thread to get a flavor.

Cheers

Thomas

 

[gregorio]

Quote:

Originally Posted by thomaspf /img/forum/go_quote.gif Many music player application allow the conversion of 16 bit music samples into 24 bit samples and conversion of the sample frequency from lets say 44.1Khz to 96 Khz. There are a lot of ongoing debates whether this so called upsampling has any benefit to the sound quality but these conversions are independent from the 24 bit support on sound cards.

There is no debate about converting 16bit samples to 24bit, there is absolutely no point whatsoever. There is nothing to be gained and only storage space to loose. Upsampling on the other hand may improve the perceived sound quality, depending on your DAC.

Even if a DAC had a dynamic range in excess of 120dB, there is still no point, for three reasons:

1. No recordings have ever or will ever be released with a dynamic range of 120dB.

2. The human ear is incapable of hearing a dynamic range of 120dB and if you tried, you would soon cause permanent hearing damage.

3. Getting a dynamic range of 120dB may be possible from your DAC but not from your speakers or an average listening environment.

Baring in mind that 120dB dynamic range can be had from 16bit audio (but is unusable), I am totally mystified as to why consumers are being offered 24bit, which can have a dynamic range of over 150dB. The only reason I can think is that it's a cynical ploy to con the consumer out of more money. I'd be interested to hear any rebuttal that a manufacturer would like to make!!

 

[thomaspf]

I am not interested in a discussion about the benefits of upsampling or the issue of releasing music in 24 bits and I don't get the sense the original poster is either. You might want to take your energy to the other active thread.

This thread is about the question whether sound cards can output 24 bit data and the answer is yes!

Cheers

Thomas

 

[gregorio]

Quote:

Originally Posted by thomaspf /img/forum/go_quote.gif This thread is about the question whether sound cards can output 24 bit data and the answer is yes!

The answer is not yes, it's no. If you disagree, prove it! Show me any DAC at any price which has a dynamic range of 144dB or greater.

 

[thomaspf]

Here is what you can do. Create a 24 bit WAV file that cycles through all possible sample values of a 24 bit sample.

Play that file through a digital output and record the result. You will find that 24 bit sound cards do indeed play back all samples with their correct values....

 

[sejarzo]

I think the problem here is a poorly formulated question by metroidfox:

Quote:

Originally Posted by metroidfox /img/forum/go_quote.gif A friend and I are arguing about whether or not there is any hardware which truly outputs 24 bit on the market right now. Are there any external dacs, or even in-computer cards which do full hardware 24 bit output of audio? His claim is that the x-fi also does 24 bit by upconverting through software. Is this true? Thanks.

The output of a DAC is an analog signal, so it doesn't output bits.

metroidfox.....are you asking if external DAC's actually process a full 24 bit digital input data stream into an analog output? The answer to that is yes, they do, but as gregorio notes, current DAC's cannot fully resolve 24 bit digital data into an analog signal--the data in the least significant bits is lost in random noise. Also, if you take a look at the noise floor of even the best microphone/mic preamp chains, you have to conclude that the least significant bits contain mostly garbage from the recording process!

On the other hand.....sure, the S/PDIF output on almost any card now is capable of full 24 bit output.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Sure, most of us can't hear above ~22 kHz and we don't listen at 120 dB or higher, but it is necessary to go higher than those levels in order to have more accurate A/D and D/A processes. It's better to have high frequency cut-off filters as high as possible and noise floors as low as possible, especially during recording; better to have the noise in the LSBs of 24 bits versus 16. Plus, in order to get perceived dynamic range of 16-bit/44.1 kHz past ~96 decibels, a dithering process must be employed, which usually adds a high frequency component (potentially audible to those who have hearing up to and past 22.05 kHz).

If material has been recorded at 24/96 or higher and end-user hardware supports that rate, why not play it back at its native resolution?

 

[metroidfox]

Sorry, yeah - that was my bad; I meant if dacs can process full 24 bit without using a lower bitrate and then upconverting (after which the signal is converted to analogue and then outputted through the line-out).

 

[metroidfox]

Btw, I can hear above 22k - but pretty much anything (when I'm outside) in that range is just noise and hurts my head.

 

[obobskivich]

it would suck to hear above 22k, damn, mine stops at like 15-16k (yeah, i know, thats really bad, i blast things too loud, i know, i'm going to be deaf by like age 60, i know, but then i get that awesome bone implant thing that i can have an EQ on and you better believe its becoming audiophile grade...)

anyways
yeah, there are 24-bit dacs, but like everyone is saying, theres A) no source material with that much dynamic range (if its in 24-bit, play it back as such, but its dynamic range can't really use all of 24-bit) and B) theres no equipment that can utilize that full dynamic range

its kind of like true 32-bit color for computer displays (this is NOT the same as 48-bit color on your TV, thats a whole different ballpark), yes there is software that can generate ~10-bits per pixel of color information, there is no display device and (for our purposes) no video adapter (Matrox had one a few years back, but it couldn't output 10 bits per pixel, it could only internally process 10 bits per pixel) that can actually render in 10-bits per pixel, even though 32-bit color provides a higher quality image than 24-bit (well, if you have alpha disabled on both, alpha channel does a lot for you in 3D though, but enough about that, back to sound)

basically the easiest way to think about 24-bit over 16-bit, is like 48-bit on your TV, what that 48-bit means is you've still got a 24-bit display (meaning 16,777,216 colors are possible at a given time) but it runs from a 48-bit (i dont know the # exactly, 2^48, its gone plaid) look up table, so you have a more dynamic color selection (its like having half-tones on printing)

basically with 24-bit audio its a similar (not exactly the same) comparison to 16-bit audio, you have more range to work within, but its impossible to actually use that whole range

now, if you're playing your 16/44.1 mp3s back in foobar with the ASIO4All and upsample forcing it into 24/96, thats software trickery, and its not really going to improve anything (unless you have a soundcard with native ASIO drivers, like an M-Audio, in which case its going to improve things because of ASIO, not because of the upsample (and if you could run ASIO at 16/44.1 i'd suggest it))

so yeah, in summation, play stuff @ native if you can, and 24-bit does entirely exist, but theres no physical way to utilize it 100%