Re: Just out of interest..

In article <1k8mg.16759$t4.12022@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, DAB sounds worse than
FM wrote:
Dynamic range isn't the issue, the issue is that you've got an extra 8 bits
to play with, so all samples can be encoded at significantly higher accuracy
than before.

I thought dynamic range was exactly the issue. Greater bit depth gives a
greater range between the largest and smallest signals that can be represented.
There is, as you say, a measureable difference between 16 bit and 24 bit audio
signals. It's the difference between dynamic ranges of 96dB and 144dB, but I
would suggest that you'd stand no chance of being able to hear the difference
over the background noise in a typical domestic living room. Turn the volume up
so that the loudest sounds are as loud as you or your neighbours can stand, and
they are likely to be no more than 40dB-50dB above the acoustic noise floor, so
how much precision you use to represent sounds that are more than 40dB below
the noise floor is academic because you won't hear them anyway. Describing them
with 8 more bits of accuracy would simply take the sound levels that *could* be
reperesented yet another 48dB below audibility.

And it doesn't seem to be possible to repeat often enough that the fact that
people *say* they can hear differences in sound quality doesn't necessarily
mean that they can. Let them come forward and substantiate their claims by
consistently identifying 16 bit and 24 bit sound recordings in a double-blind
test, and *then* I'll believe them. Can you give a reference for any instance
where anybody has ever done this?

Rod.

.

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