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Gear / Technical Help => Recording Gear => Topic started by: Steelcorner27 on October 06, 2005, 10:56:06 PM
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Just wondering what a Tascam DA-30 MKII would do with a 24 bit spdif signal, would it dither or truncate the singnal to 16?
Thanks
Brad
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all DAT machines would truncate it
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all DAT machines would truncate it
Not all. The DA-45HR can record 24bit to DAT. ;)
...but yeah, 16bit only DAT machines will truncate.
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all DAT machines would truncate it
Not all. The DA-45HR can record 24bit to DAT. ;)
...but yeah, 16bit only DAT machines will truncate.
fair point
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also, I think some of the home Sony DAT units (not sure which ones offhand) use SBM-1 technology. they might dither down the 24 bit signal to 16 bit, which is better than just truncating it.
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also, I think some of the home Sony DAT units (not sure which ones offhand) use SBM-1 technology. they might dither down the 24 bit signal to 16 bit, which is better than just truncating it.
Even if they have SBM, I doubt it is active on a digital input.
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also, I think some of the home Sony DAT units (not sure which ones offhand) use SBM-1 technology. they might dither down the 24 bit signal to 16 bit, which is better than just truncating it.
Even if they have SBM, I doubt it is active on a digital input.
That's correct. SBM only works on the analog inputs, not the digital inputs.
Wayne
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so what does a truncated signal sound like ???
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so what does a truncated signal sound like ???
Try it, Bean. Load up a 24-bit file in Wavelab. Truncate it to 16-bit. Compare. I hear a loss of detail overall (not surprisingly), especially in the attack and decay of transients.
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I feel like a truncated 16-bit file is still a perfectly acceptable back-up, I've done both truncated and analog back-ups into my jb3, and I prefer truncation.
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so what does a truncated signal sound like ???
Try it, Bean. Load up a 24-bit file in Wavelab. Truncate it to 16-bit. Compare. I hear a loss of detail overall (not surprisingly), especially in the attack and decay of transients.
how would i truncate that signal in wavelab tho ???
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I feel like a truncated 16-bit file is still a perfectly acceptable back-up, I've done both truncated and analog back-ups into my jb3, and I prefer truncation.
Sometimes they can sound very good. Saturday I did a 2 channel mixdown (from 6 channels) on the DEVA and fed that to the archivist of Oslopo for their set at Harvest Moon Festival in Austin. The DEVA only sends out a 24-bit AES signal out the digital output. The Tascam DA-P1 he used truncates the additional 8-bits and we listened to some of it later (I listened in the field with my Etymotic ER-4), and it sounded just fine.
Will the 24-bit file sound better? Yes, but as a backup or even a master depending on the source and other factors, a 16-bit truncated file sounds just fine.
Without dithering the next best way to get from 24-bit to 16-bit in the digital world is to use 16-bit floating point, processed in this manner will sound pretty good, and usually as good as any of the dithered files. That said, you have few devices taking in a 24-bit file and doing much more than just chopping off the LSB 8-bits.
Wayne
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so what does a truncated signal sound like ???
Try it, Bean. Load up a 24-bit file in Wavelab. Truncate it to 16-bit. Compare. I hear a loss of detail overall (not surprisingly), especially in the attack and decay of transients.
how would i truncate that signal in wavelab tho ???
If it's anythign like the Mac, you simply use the save as function and tell it the format is 16-bit not 24 and make sure you haven't enabled the dithering routines.
Wayne