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

[Brian]

ok here is a simple explanation of what i meant int he previous post.

Studies have shown that human beings can perceive time, or audio bursts in the range of 1/50000 of a second.thus you can HEAR the holes, or pauses in the 44.1 or 48k signal, but not in a 96 K signal or even a 60K sample rate.    People also used to say there was no reason to record in 24 bits too, the claim was that the human ear couldn't perceive the difference in bits.

Those holes we hear are perceived as "grain" in the recording.

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

Brian, what you posted about temporal perception is what I was trying to write above.  Somewhere there is a link to a detailed explanation and I think there is a link to a study that provides emperical results.  I just dumped a bunch of bookmarks and lost the links.

I completely agree with this on a theoretical level, which is why I record everything at 96K.   But I have to keep in mind the results of the 48K vs 96K test Wayne did with the Deva.  I could hear a difference between the two recordings and the audible difference could easily be blamed on the different nights and slightly mismatched levels of the two samples.   I could not hear a difference that made me say "Ah, that one is 96k". 

Either my gear isn't up to the task or maybe my player upsamples with excellent results.   I can hear very distinct difference between the 24 vs 16 but the 96k isn't distinctly better than than the 48K in that test.  I have not done my own test.   At least one person here claims that he hears the difference with 96K in his system. 

Do you actually hear a difference in your playback system? 

[Brian]

at this point I can't really say with simple two track recordings.

now with some of the multi-track stuff i've worked on, I can definitely tell a difference when I'm listening back over really nice monitors.

over computer speakers? no.  over my motu 828mkII > KRK V6's setup at home...I can't quite tell with teh two track stuff yet.  I need to do some more critical listening though.

The scientific tests and results are enough to make me record at higher sample rates.  I mean, we spend lots of money buying all this great gear and take the time to record in the best spot we possibly can.  Why go that far to only to introduce grain or the "susceptibility of grain" into recording by utlizing a low sample rate? I thought we were all about trying to make the best possible recordings we can.

[dklein]

Adding a comment on the Nyquist thing - there's another reason for higher sample rates.  When doing the a>d, you must filter out all frequencies above Nyquist to avoid aliasing.  So when we record at 44.1, nothing above 22kHz is allowed to hit the a>d.  At the same time, we want frequencies up to 20 kHz.  This abrupt filtering (no effect up to 20kHz, full blocking at 22kHz) is supposed to be quite challenging from a design standpoint.

A major advantage of going to something like 96k is that Nyquist is now 48k.  Creating a filter that cuts everything above 48k while leaving everything up to 20k unaltered is supposed to be much easier to accomplish.

It's been written that much of what we don't like about the digital sound is a by-product of the required filtering vs. just being digital.

All theory...I haven't done any 96k recordings myself (or even played back someone elses).

I always record in 24 bit these days but haven't necessarily concluded the benefits are there.  I like the idea, have the gear and figure it couldn't hurt, especially with respect to nailing the levels.  One day I'll get a proper a/b test going but that's not so easy to do and would still only cover off one particalur a>d.