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24 bit v 16 bit

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caitjim:
Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere but a lot of download sites are showing shows recorded in both 16 and 24 bit options. I've even seen some late 1960s audience recordings transferred to 24 bit and the sound is still woeful. You can't put in what isn't there in the first place quality wise. Anyway, back to today. Will I really miss much quality wise if I record in 16 bit as opposed to 24 bit as I'm going to compress it to MP3 anyhow.
Thank for your answers.

dyneq:
The only way to know for sure is for you to do your own ABX test.

I can't tell the difference, and I believe that most people can't either. Here's a good blog post on the subject:

https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

Ronmac:
Higher bit rate does not guarantee better recordings. It does allow for more dynamic range, although that will only be meaningful if the dynamic range is considered during the recording process.

Recording music that has a very limited dynamic range (most club and festival PAs) can not be made better by resampling at a higher bit rate.

ilduclo:
recording wise, you can record at lower volume and avoid any chance of brickwalling when using 24 bit. After recording, the 24 bit can be amplified to the optimal level without adding hiss. My personal method is to record at 44.1x24, saving these to an archival file, then on a copied set of files, do all the adjustments and editing before converting them to 44.1x16. You can do the same from 44.1x24 to mp3 pretty easily. If you want the best sounding mp3's, I would recommend recording at 24 bit and stepping it down to mp3 after editing. As an additional method, flac encoding is a good way to save file size and not lose any sound quality, either at 24 bit or at 16.

EmRR:
24 bit allows more effective changes after the fact: raising levels, equalizing, etc.  A 16 recording with very low level will suffer compared to the same in 24 bit, since the 'floor' is so much closer to the signal.  Most workstations are working at 32bit floating point for level changes, as example, it's 'penalty free' because dynamic range is so high.  16 bit, not so much, you are baking in a smaller range.   

It makes much less difference once you've made changes to a recording so it's ready for presentation, at that point it can make sense to reduce to 16 bit.    If you've got a really detailed listening system you may hear a clear difference between 16 and 24 at that point. 

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