[sholladay]

Music producer here. High resolution audio is useful for editing and anywhere there might be downstream processing or format conversion that may or may not be high quality, let alone lossless. The article covers that pretty well.

However, the article claims that the final distribution doesn’t need to have a bit depth of more than 16. That does not match my experience. I can tell the difference between my renders that are 16 bit vs 24 bit. I cannot tell the difference between 44.1 kHz and higher sample rates, and that’s consistent with the math (Nyquist-Shannon), but bit depth is a different matter. Would be fun to participate in a double-blind test that includes my own tracks and others.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

> I can tell the difference between my renders that are 16 bit vs 24 bit.

established using double blind testing, I assume?

[nok22kon]

thermal noise allows about 18-22 bits of real precision at audio level voltages, so it's plausible that 16 bit is somewhat limiting

[PaulDavisThe1st]

16 bit may limit it on the input side, but the question is more about human hearing's sensitivity on the "output" side ...

[guenthert]

What? You still operate your ADCs without active cooling?

I'm writing in jest, but long time ago, -hp- used actively cooled FETs (not a very popular approach today as that caused problems with condensation and we have better FETs now).