5 ms·
Same goes for 16/24 bit, however, the difference between 16 and 24 bit is actually audible No, the difference is not audible at all. At 16 bits of depth on a n
by hackermom 15y ago
Same goes for 16/24 bit, however, the difference between 16 and 24 bit is actually audible
No, the difference is not audible at all. At 16 bits of depth on a normal low-level audio signal (~0.3 volts), we're talking about less than 0.000005 volts per amplitude step. This difference gets lost in the THD already at the DAC in your audio output stage. Then it gets lost again in the amplifier. And again in the cable to your speakers or headphones. And then it gets lost again in the speaker elements. What survives in a normal low-level audio signal is about 14 bits of resolution.
44100 is not a bad sampling rate, but it necessitates very sharp aliasing filters, which are audibly bad. A bit more headroom is well needed there.
44.1khz IS a bad sampling rate for accurately reproducing anything except a triangle wave or square wave above 5khz.
- yzhou 15y agowhy do you think "This difference gets lost in the THD already at the DAC "? Do you have numbers to back it up? What's the noise floor of DAC? What's the noise floor of an output stage? Do you have the number?
- sjwright 15y agoThe number is somewhere between the amplitude of an ant pissing on cotton, and an ant not even thinking about pissing on cotton.
- yzhou 15y agohigh dynamic range is not about the lowest volume you can hear, it's about the voltage resolution between this sampling point and the next. Base on your assumption, we can all see black whether we use 16bit RGB color or 24bit RGB color, what's the point of using 24bit RGB?
- hackermom 15y agoMany years of building audio equipment (in particular analog synthesizers), and equally many years of being meticulously anal with getting the best components for my circuits, reading specifications of down to every single op-amp I've ever employed, is why I think so. I am not saying that there aren't any DACs on the planet that can't handle five millionths of a volt, but I am saying that five millionths of a volt isn't surviving through the particular DACs and the rest of the electronics used in your PC/living room hi-fi audio equipment.
- yzhou 15y agowhy do you think "This difference gets lost in the THD already at the DAC "? Do you have numbers to back it up? What's the noise floor of DAC? What's the noise floor of an output stage? Do you have the number?
- davesims 15y agoHeh, it's funny to see this late-nineties debate get re-hashed here. Also kind of fun. If it were true that there's no audible difference between 16 and 24 bit, companies like Alesis, Otari, ProTools, etc. wouldn't have spent the last 15 years ditching 16 bit like an old pair of smelly sneakers. (better metaphors welcome). Seriously, anyone who has sat down in a real listening environment for 5 minutes A/Bing 16 vs 20 bit, 16 vs 24, etc. hears the difference immediately. There's no question. This is why you can buy ADAT 16 bit 'blackfaces' for $100, down from their original $4,000.
- ferongr 15y agoBigger numbers are better. Right? It's all marketing, baby!
- hackermom 15y agoYes, and anyone who has ever sat down infront of an LCD flatscreen watching their favorite movie on DVD/BD using gold-plated $200 HDMI cable instead of $4.99 Walmart HDMI cable see the extra sharpness immediately. This is why non-gold plated non-OFC HDMI cables are down to $4.99 a piece from their original $49.99 during introduction.
- scott_s 15y agoI can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.
- alanh 15y agoI’m going to go ahead and say yes, that seems to be blatant sarcasm, or at least, reference to placebo effect / being a sucker.
- scott_s 15y agoThe difficulty I had is that the same person claimed they could hear the difference between 44 kHz and 96 kHz, when the article (and all other comments which cited outside sources) claims that is well outside of human capability.