Downsampling with CD WAV?

[lds490]

I recorded a show (Lotus/The Slip) in 24/48, loaded it up with CD WAV, and split the tracks.  I want to dither/downsample to 16/44 to burn onto CD.  CD WAV will do this, but should I use CD WAV or another audio editor, like Audition or Sound Forge?

Does anyone know if CD WAV dithers or truncates (I think that's the right terminology)?

Also, what is the purpose of the "use alternate 24 bit format" button in the CD WAV save function?

[Brian Skalinder]

I haven't tried it myself, but I've heard people say the resample/dither functionality in CD-Wave sucks.  I'd stick with a proper audio editor if I were you like SF, Audition, or Audacity.

I vaguely recall people discussing the "alternate 24-bit format", but I don't remember the distinction off the top of my head.  Try searching, or maybe someone will address it again in this thread.

[Tall Adam]

dont use audacity for this purpose, it will not truely resample or dither at all, merely create a file that is sped up in this case, and truncated. stick with SF, audition (cooledit) or wavelab

[Brian Skalinder]

it [Audacity] will not truely resample or dither at all, merely create a file that is sped up in this case, and truncated.

Not true.  Unless the Audacity settings simply don't do what they say they do.  In Audacity 1.2.2:

File | Preferences | Quality tab

Set Default Sample Rate to your target Sample Rate
Set Default Sample Format to your target bit-depth
Set High Quality Sample Rate Converter to HQ Sinc Interpolation (not Fast Sinc Interpolation)
Set High Quality Dither to Rectangle, Triangle, or Shaped (not none)
Then Export to WAV.

Haven't played around much with the dither / resample options to see which combo sounds best as I don't really do any 24-bit recording at this point, so I can't speak to the quality of this functionality.  But the options are there.  Are you sure you have the latest version of Audacity and have it configured properly?

[Tall Adam]

yeah i use 1.2.2. never knew those options were even there, ill look into that but i doubt ill use it, i like the dither and noiseshaping algorithms in CE/Audition more.