Topic: 24bit ..... or 16bit...whats your experience?

[Kindguy]

24bit makes me feel like a newbie again. 

One day I'll give it a whirl.

[nickgregory]

24bit makes me feel like a newbie again.

exactly how I felt with inital 722 issues, burning dvd-A issues and home playback upgrade...glad I made the shift though!

[BC]

i haven't found my 24/96 recordings to have more crowd noise

I don't think it's a question of more crowd noise, but the higher resolution of 24-bit providing greater detail.  The greater detail in turn makes the crowd noise more lifelike, more real - easier to pick out individual voices, conversations, noises, etc. - and therefore more distracting.  But that's based only a very few 24-bit recordings I've heard.

This is exactly one of the first things I noticed when I started recording 24 bit...

[cdevs]

its funny...
here is a band...whos cabinets are being "recorded" with sure SM57s > compressed to all hell > pumped through mostly crappy PA systems in MONO, more or less...and here we are recording the room with $2k+ worth of stereo gear.
and ...thinking its "all that"

sounds like somebody's got a case of the ...Thursdays (No offense intended, dude)

What you say is true...but two wrongs don't make a right, either. (although 3=left)

Universal law: every link in the chain affects the end result. Having said that, some of the best listening experiences I've had involved sub-$1K playback systems (albeit w/Klipschs) and average recordings of REALLY GREAT shows...cranked...

So what's my point? Guess it's all relative...and trust your ears. (And yer NUTS )

PS Nick check this out for km140 action:
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=58869

[marc0789]

I think when taping a PA the difference is really not that big...now if you are taping raw music..say like an orchestra in a nice hall, or a band with no PA, then the difference become more apparent. Just my 2 cents...if anything, when taping a crappy PA in your typical bar or music venue, the 24bit will just make it sound all the more crappy...just my 2 cents

after listening to quite a few 24 bit sources, that's my take.....but I haven't run 24 myself....just think that for taping PA music from a distance, with venue issues, crowd issues that the payoff just isn't there. maybe I'd feel differently if I had a topnotch acoustically perfect venue to tape in, but not even close.

Or maybe that's my excuse, and I'm just too lazy and cheap to make the investment.

[marc0789]

I know Jason...i'm fickle.

I think 24bit is worth it.  but 16bit doesnt suck at all.
high sample rates...not worth it, IMO. 

its funny...
here is a band...whos cabinets are being "recorded" with sure SM57s > compressed to all hell > pumped through mostly crappy PA systems in MONO, more or less...and here we are recording the room with $2k+ worth of stereo gear.
and ...thinking its "all that"

that about says it all for me.

[tonyvt]

here is a band...whos cabinets are being "recorded" with sure SM57s > compressed to all hell > pumped through mostly crappy PA systems in MONO, more or less...and here we are recording the room with $2k+ worth of stereo gear.
and ...thinking its "all that"

Excellent observation.
This thread reminds me of a conversation I had years ago in the section before a dead show. We were bragging about how our mics sounded better than our buddy's.

 My buddy said the funniest thing, "No matter how much you spend on your rig is still sounds like the show was taped in a boomy hockey rink".

[Chanher]

two things

1. for all the ua-5 users, I have found 24-bit to be worth it. I ran the ua-5 into a lappy at 24 bit since Jan. I recently busted out the jb3 for a couple shows. I had prime fob sweet spot location and was excited to hear the results; after listening on the stereo I was pretty dissapointed. The recording just didn't shine like past ones, it seemed "dull" as opposed to being "lively". Is this what people are calling "musical"?  Anyway, I REALLY want to run a head to head ua-5 comparison, one at 16 and one at 24. This brings up another question: Does the ua-5 have any sort of noise-shaping algorithm for 16-bit?

2. we all know the rate of improvement in technology is very fast. I like to think that in the future, maybe even past our lifetimes, digital audio technology could be beyond our very comprehension. By using the highest bit-depth and sample rate possible, we could be doing future audio technicians a favor for whatever advances techniques and solutions they might have. Think about all the remastering being done to timeless recordings from the past/analog era; they've worked wonders.

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

if our mics only record up to 20kHz, what's the point of being abel to playback or record higher than 20???  How about your playback freq. range??? 

Terry

Nyquist is appropriate to determine the maximum required sampling rate only for a single point source.  For stereo recordings of multiple point sources, there is more to capture than just the wave amplitude.  Your ears and brain can detect sound arrival differences about as small as the time between two samples at 96KHz.  So if you record a widely dispersed collection of distinct sources, an orchestra for example, you will get better spatial resolution of the different instruments.  I don't have the supporting links handy but I posted references in a playback thread some time ago. 

I agree that it is overkill for the PA tapes we make mainly because I could not hear a difference in the comparison tracks Wayne sent to me.  But there is an advantage to 96k in some real situations. 

[admkrk]

if our mics only record up to 20kHz, what's the point of being abel to playback or record higher than 20???  How about your playback freq. range??? 

Terry

Nyquist is appropriate to determine the maximum required sampling rate only for a single point source.  For stereo recordings of multiple point sources, there is more to capture than just the wave amplitude.  Your ears and brain can detect sound arrival differences about as small as the time between two samples at 96KHz.  So if you record a widely dispersed collection of distinct sources, an orchestra for example, you will get better spatial resolution of the different instruments.  I don't have the supporting links handy but I posted references in a playback thread some time ago. 

I agree that it is overkill for the PA tapes we make mainly because I could not hear a difference in the comparison tracks Wayne sent to me.  But there is an advantage to 96k in some real situations. 

i'm surprised it took this long before the nyquist theory (frequency) was brought up. also i certainly can't quote it right now, but it's something like needing twice to get half??  i.e. you need to record at 40 khz to get 20 khz. it also is irrelivent to 24bit vs. 16bit.

frequency = the "range" of sound we hear.
bit rate / word length = the amount of detail.

 consider 16bit = mp3  and  24bit = flac


maybe not the best analigy, but i think it fairly represents the point.

[twatts (pants are so over-rated...)]

Oh, yeah.  I'm a total moron when it comes to the science...

I can understand the basics - more is better - 24/96 gives you much better detail, etc.  But I'm wondering how many of us are thinking of the cart before the horse by jumping to 24/96 before playback can handle it.  I know if I went 24/96 now, I wouldn't be able to reap any of the benefits. 

But at the same time, I'm not saying that we should tape to 24/96 if we have the ability.  I've started taping 16/48 a long time ago knowing one day I could use the 48k FLACs.  Thinking about the future...

T

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

Terry implicitly brought up nyquist with his question of sample rate vs the fequency range of the mics.  I mentioned it because I understood that was the basis for his question and most people assume that nyquist is the last word on sample rate selection, which it isn't. 

With respect to the original topic, I hear a dramatic improvement with 24-bit in my system and I don't find the additional resolution distracting when it come to the crowd noise.  So for me the 24-bit is the way to go.

Edit:  BTW, sampling rate and bit depth are both related to the detail in a recording.  Sample rate determines the maximum spatial detail within the image for recordings of multiple point sources.

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

I've started taping 16/48 a long time ago knowing one day I could use the 48k FLACs.  Thinking about the future...

what is the advantage of running 16/48, vs. 16/44.  I have always wondered.........

I don't think there is much advantage to 48K over 44.1K.   If you will always burn to CDs for playback, it is probably better to use 44.1K so that you don't have to down-sample from 48K for the CDs.

On the other hand, if you plan to burn your entire show to one DVD and you intend to use the DVD-V format instead of DVD-A, then you might prefer 48K so that you don't have to up-sample from 44.1K to 48K since the DVD-V format supports only 48K and 96K LPCM streams. 

[Brian]

24/44.1 or 48k = grainy

24/88.2 or 96 = not grainy

it has to do with the sample rate's relationship to time.  this is simply why higher sample rates will always be better.  more on this when i can pull together my thoughts to better explain this.

[BC]

sample rate -> Frequency response (Nyquist theorem as mentioned by others)

Bit depth -> Dynamic range, 6 dB/bit, so 24 bit word lengths give us a theoretical limit of 144 dB, although most preamps and AD's top out at 115 to 120 dB dynamic range. One benefit of greater dynamic range is increased resolution of low level sounds. Another is the ability to run more conservatively and still wind up with resolution greater than a 16 bit recording with perfectly hot levels.