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RE: thanks guys but,what is the 24 bit i keep hearing about

Hi,

The label "24-Bit" is meaningless, unless we specify the context.

A DAC may be marketed as "24-Bit".

Such a DAC (Chip) may:

1) Be a true 24-Bit DAC Chip (only PCM1704 AFAIK) but has an analogue performance that is less than 24 Bit.

2) Be a low Bit DAC Chip that accepts 24-Bit Data but has an analogue performance that is less than 24 Bit.

You can read about the above and a bit more DAC background in my Article titled: Thermionic Valve Analogue Stages for Digital Audio.

I recently updated this Article and submitted it for publication to the Enjoy The Music DIY Mag, but Steve has so far failed to publish it.

3) Be a DAC that incorporates so-called upsampling (more precisely asyncronous sample rate conversion) which is claimed to "upsample CD to 24 Bits", which it does.

Implied is of course that the upsampled CD signal somehow magically takes on the qualities of a true 24 Bit recording, which is of course hogwash.

In fact as we can learn from basic information theory, any form of mathematical transformation not operating at infinite precision (which is impossible) can only lead to losses of information.

4) Refer to a DAC designed to fully accept audio at 24 Bit Wordlength and if written 24/192 all sample rates up to 192KHz are supported.

You can now find many recordings on-line that have 24Bit wordlength and 96KHz or higher sample rates. These do sound appreciably better than CD and I would say also match or exceed the subjective performance of good LP's.

This scene is still in infancy and pretty much makes the use of a PC or Mac as frontend mandatory. The returns are not small however.

I personally decoded all my HDCD sourced Files to the original 20-Bit to play back using a 24/192KHz usb DAC and I have a number of high resolution files which I think are exceptional. But even most HDCD's through this setup approach closely to what one can get from LP.

Ciao T
Thor

At 20 bits, you are on the verge of dynamic range covering fly-farts-at-20-feet to intolerable pain. Really, what more could we need?

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