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RE: Playing 24/96 and 24/192 FLAC files. What to use?

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In Reply to: RE: Playing 24/96 and 24/192 FLAC files. What to use? posted by Freo-1 on June 15, 2020 at 17:46:54

Upscaling bit depth is an exercise in futility. "Adding" word length is not a real thing. The S/N remains at about 96dB even if you bring it up to 24bit. The reason is that in mastering for CD, a 24bit recording is scaled down to 16bit and dither (low-level noise) is added. Once you truncate the additional 8 bits the result is graininess (quantization distortion) at low levels, so dither is added. So once you do this the dynamic range doesn't change going back to 24 bit, you only manage bringing the dither noise up. 24 bit upscaling has no effect on normal high signals, since you are only lowering the so-called noise floor with higher bit rates. However the added dither at mastering limits the quietest passages to whatever the dither was that was added at mastering. You cannot recover what was on the 24 bit master at mastering since it was truncated when saved at 16 bit. It's gone ... forever.

Subjective listening is a fickle thing and doesn't always reflect the reality.

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