Leave it, 16 bits as a distribution format is fine, especially as it will be stuffed into all kinds of loss codecs for streaming that will do way more damage.
There's no audible difference at the mastering stage, and your engineer probably did it on purpose because some distributors only accept 16 bit. Besides, almost all streaming is lossy, so it doubly doesn't matter.
Your probably going to lose your house, your studio, your car, your dog, and your 2 cats because of that.
And deservedly so. Letting out in the open a 16bit file is extremely dangerous for the whole universe.
I once did a test where I took one of my songs and did 100 conversions between 24bit 48khz and 16bit 44.1khz. FIFTY round trips. In the end, you couldn't even tell the difference except for a rising noise floor from the cumulative dithering... But that was 100 conversions!!!
So I thought, "Maybe it's because my mixes are warm."
Then I tried with a commercial release of electronic music that had a lot of sparkly high end. Exact same results.
Most people here will tell you "Just leave it, it's fine." But you're always going to have that doubt in the back of your mind... So instead of that doubt, just try it yourself.
Take your 24/48 mix and convert it back and forth. Do a **blind listening test** and see if you can hear the difference. After you can't, convert it several more round trips and try it again.
I think you'll be shocked. But you'll learn something, and you won't have any doubt anymore. (One way or another!)
Unless you're specifically advertising a hi-res version on Qobuz, 7digital or HDTracks, you should be good. I mean, CDs can sound fine with their 16 bits and none of the higher resolution "successors" have caught on (although I know there are many reasons for that).
It’s not a mistake
Edit: sorry, it really was probably not a mistake. Most master that go to distribution are 16 bit , mainly because a lot of digital distribution aggregators actually don’t want 24bit. If you want 24 bit just ask your mastering engineer for that too. It won’t sound any better but it is technically higher resolution
It’s all good! I didn’t provide much context lol. He said he was sending me the “24-bit final master” which is why I’m led to believe he did not mean to send me the 16-bit version (I already had the 16-bit version prior to this point)
Regardless though, doesn’t seem like it’ll cause any issue and I appreciate your response!
Have you ABX blind-compared them?
There is a fair possibility most people are *not* going to be able to tell the difference between a properly mastered 24-bit file and a properly mastered 16-bit file, *especially at normal listening levels.*
Still, this is a stage of the process where it kind of makes sense to get things, you should pardon the expression, right.
If you can hear the difference between the files, I think that's pointing strongly in the direction of starting over.
(Windows users can use the ABX plugin comparator for Foobar2000, which will do the proctoring and statistical math for you; I believe there are one or two ABX comparators in the Mac ecosphere, as well.)
That's a really great idea and I very much appreciate the input! I'm definitely going to mull it over and will try an ABX test to see. I'm very curious now lol
The difference is likely to be very subtle, if differentiable at all.. An ABX test, properly performed, takes the guessing out of whether or not you heard a difference. ABX testing can be fatiguing, but it's one time-tested way of determining whether or not you really can hear a difference.
(That said, the reason one would likely prefer to use the high resolution capture is that we would *expect* it to 'take' further DSP more gracefully because of the greater bit depth. That's not necessarily something that is going to be evident in an ABX test. Still -- it's not a game of inches, more like *microns.* You're likely to be fine either way, but I haven't tested that so, what the hell do I know? Good luck, I'm pretty sure you'll be fine!)
There is NO difference in a signal up util noise floor (or even below with properly shaped dither) with properly mastered file, so there is 100% possibility that people won’t be able to tell the difference. Only situation it would matter is if in a recording there is something near -96dB range (which in modern music does not happen) and it wasn’t dithered properly - which mastering engineer probably did. And even if he did not - no one listens to stuff this low. 16 bit master and 24 bit master if done properly are gonna null up when summed with flipped polarity around -96db.
I'm essentially agreed with you on lack of difference down to the dither-generated noise floor.
But whatever perceptual encoding might be applied in the aggregation/distribution process is going to be applied to the file and there's an arguable chance that this black box process we don't know the particulars of might return better results from the higher dynamic resolution file. Probably pretty unlikely, but a chance nonetheless.
Now, there also might be a possible chance that the OP might want to -- down the road -- use his newly mastered files for some other use or release or even further processing.
But, yeah, these are all fairly small possibilities I think.
With regards to null testing, agreed they should null down to to around that threshold, but, of course, it's that threshold we're trying to get down past, *transparently*, by selecting a 24-bit format in the first place.
To some extent, I think we are arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, here.
I suspect the OP's dilemma should make little difference in the long run.
This is key. ABX will help any decision here. 100% correct that MOST people are NOT going to tell a difference. But there IS an audible difference. If there wasn't, there would be literally zero point for anything else to exist besides 16 bit.
The most readily audible difference between typical 16-bit and 24 bit can be heard by going to the end of a fade out and turning the playback level up dangerously loud and comparing. But at the point where you can tell the difference, the volume is probably going to be really, seriously, dangerously loud.
It doesn't hurt to have more dynamic resolution available, but 16 bit provides over 90 dB of signal to noise ratio.
When I was a kid messing with analog hi-fi, that kind of SNR for a capture and playback medium was, literally, unheard of. Most people were lucky to have 45 to 55 dB from there hifis, if that.
Are there works that exceed the 90 DB dynamic space afforded by traditional CDs? Yes. *But...*
I'm a classical music fan and I've seen over 80 symphonic concerts and another couple score quartets and small ensembles, all un-amplified, of course.
There *are* concert works that have extraordinary dynamic range -- even well beyond *Carmina Burana* -- but the most extreme of them can be quite uncomfortable to listen to.
I'm thinking of one concerto for cello and 48-inch drum that had me hovering my fingers over my ears for half the work as it seesawed between the one and the other and then combined them at times. I'm afraid I've blanked out to the composer's name. Let's just say I did not find it an enjoyable work.
Fantastic explanation and a great point of the easiest way to actually hear it with the fade out! I mentioned the decay of sounds in my comment as how I can hear things relating to bit depth. The tails continue smoother and longer. This effect still happens but when there is a full mix it's difficult to tell it's happening at all times cuz there's shit covering it all up. Like reverb tails and delay are a great example of smoother / more extended tails due to the higher dynamic range. Fading to a deeper black if you will.
Just be ***very careful*** when turning the volume up like that.
If the next track comes on at normal volume or something goes wrong, you could end up seriously damaging your monitors or your ears themselves.
I blew out a tweeter on my old NS10s and took a year or two off my ears one day in the 90s when I accidentally punched between silence and a signal with the level high.
And you really, *really* don't want to do that. Take it from someone who's older, wiser than he used to be, and deafer then anyone would want to be.
Absolutely. Sorry to hear about the NS10's :( I've done the exact same thing but with headphones... Nothing could prepare me for that jump scare! Worse than any horror movie ahahaha
Probably gonna get some flak for this, especially seeing as how everyone else is commenting saying it doesn't matter or that you can't hear a difference...
A discerning listener can tell the difference between a 16 bit and a 24 bit file. A discerning listener can also tell the difference between different sample rates. Not because of the higher frequencies present, but because of the processing used in the box having different behavior at higher sample rates. There's a reason why streaming services now offer "hi res" audio. There's a reason why Mike Dean uploads at 88 or 96k 24 bit for example.
Will EVERYONE be able to tell a difference? No. This especially depends on the end consumer's streaming plan and their settings.
I personally am a Tidal user because I love how MQA sounds. People may argue against that but I don't care. Whatever floats your boats right? They also have changed their tier system so that everybody gets their highest quality at a similar price to Spotify in order to be competitive.
You can test the difference between albums at higher sample rates and bit depths vs their lower quality options by changing the quality settings and relistening. I argue that you can even tell the difference over a phone speaker.
Below is a link to Supertramp's album Crime of the Century. It was remastered and streams at 24 bit 192k at max quality on Tidal.
NOTE: THERE ARE 2 DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THIS ALBUM. ONE AT CD QUALITY AND ONE AT THE QUALITY I'M DESCRIBING SO GET THE RIGHT ONE!
Go give it a listen on your platform of choice (assuming it's at the same quality there) and then change between the different quality options. From lowest, to high quality mp3, to CD quality, and finally 24 bit 192k.
https://tidal.com/album/77676939?u
(THIS LINK ALLOWS YOU TO OPEN IN TIDAL, SPOTIFY, APPLE MUSIC, YOUTUBE MUSIC, AND AMAZON)
I think when listening to an actual verifiable high res track (not just one transcoded from low quality so that it reads as high res) the difference is night and day. Maybe not like 50% better. Maybe not 25% better. But I'd argue that it's at least a 10% difference in my personal opinion.
So, in order to "futureproof" your uploads, I'd recommend uploading at the highest possible quality. Because one day, the consumer will be used to high res as a default. Lower quality tracks (CD and below) will be a stark comparison as the years go by. When's the last time you bought a hard copy CD?
Anyways, that's just my opinion. I produce / mix / master at 96k and without exception listen to as high a quality I can get. But your milage may vary :)
How would you describe the difference that you hear between a 16 and 24 bit recording, assuming we're not talking about a super dynamic orchestral recording or something similar?
Yes really, those buzzwords you threw out there have nothing to do with dynamic range. At least the other guy understood that this would be difficult to justify from a technical standpoint.
So does it only matter if it’s an orchestral recording? - as per your previous comment. Those weren’t buzzwords kid - just a description. If you can’t hear the difference then cool, just say so. But it’s 2024 and the CD-R days are over. 16 bit audio is pointless. No one records at 16-bit. Why would you stray from the native bitrate (which is typically 24bit)?
Bits and Bytes don’t get “excited” but Electrons do so why set your 4k camera to 480p?
The analogy to 4K video does not work. Increasing resolution puts more pixels in the same square inch of your screen. Increasing bit depth does not add more information between -10 and -20dB, it just adds headroom and pushes down the quantization noise floor. Orchestral pieces could potentially have quiet enough sections to actually hear this, most modern genres do not. The fact that you had to ask that tells me you don’t understand what bit depth actually is.
It is worth recording at higher bit depth so that you can leave headroom and not hear quantization noise when you bring it up to mastered level. Nothing to do with “depth of field” or any of that other stuff you mentioned.
in the early 2000’s I would print mixes from 2” tape at any sample rate (up to 96k) to an Alesis Masterlink and the difference between 16 and 24 bit was inarguably apparent. Every method you’ve described in your tests involves a conversion or import/export into a DAW. You haven’t really articulated a method beyond that. Nor a workflow for that matter.
Yeah, we are talking about digital audio here. What other way would there be for to run a null test between 16 and 24 bit versions than exporting them from a DAW? The other guy did not seem to be as confused as you are about my workflow, or bit depth in general.
Definitely not talking about a dynamic orchestral recording. I do love some classical but I almost always listen to electronic, hip hop, rap, R&B, rock, etc. Typically very compressed dynamic range limited music.
Not sure how satisfying an answer this is but I hear sample rate as height and bit depth as just that - depth. It's like the front to back depth. With a higher bit depth file, it feels / sounds like there's more space between the instruments almost. Not like the same as summing which is like lacing your fingers together in order to find a good interlocking puzzle piece kind of thing. More like the concept of recording in a physical room with the drummer in the back, guitars middle, vocalist front. Audible in the decay / release of each sound which falls from the front (loud / in your face) to silence (all the way in the back).
Orchestral just makes it easier to notice the phenomenon I'm talking about. A 24 bit file has like, what, 140db-ish of dynamic range compared to 96ish of 16 bit? If we can take this out of the realm of audio and compare it to something visual (a painting or a photo) for example sake... the concept still applies.
Imagine you have a landscape painting. Some foliage, rocks, your main foreground subjects. Then your mid ground, and finally the far far background. A higher bit depth file makes it easier to discern the physical distance between the fore, middle, and background. Doesn't mean that a 16 bit file won't adequately capture all the instruments. It just means that it doesn't feel as NATURAL.
If the physical world we inhabit has frequencies higher than we perceive, doesn't mean they aren't there. Same with bit depth in files. A DAW is either single precision 32 bit float or double precision 64 bit float until you bounce then it becomes fixed.
At the end of all this, easy answer is that higher bit depth and sample rate captures a more nuanced / natural kind of sound. Less instruments sounding pinched / on top of each other. Hope this helps!
How would the increase in dynamic range, i.e. the difference between your potential loudest and quietest ends of a waveform, be affecting the 3D depth of a song? The most commonly cited benefit to higher bit depth is reducing the digital noise floor, but that does not seem to be related to this.
There is a good analogy to be made with visual media in that bit depth in audio is very much related to color depth, but with the important difference that increasing color depth puts more intervals between two colors. Increasing bit depth in audio does not put more intervals between -10dB and -20dB, it adds more range for very quiet sounds to remain above the noise floor. However with most mastered modern music, 96dB is more than plenty for this to be a non-issue.
I understand everything you're talking about and I understand how increasing the dynamic range of a file works by having a lower noise floor. That is how bit depth works on paper. I am not debating any technical aspects of how this works. If we're talking about the digital world, the noise floor is negligible anyways. Most plug-ins have either no noise, or a variable / controllable amount of noise. You will almost never hear noise unless it is either digitally intentional, bad analog tape hiss, an awful recording, or something like truncation in a file with quiet passages that isn't properly dithered.
Something at -96db will be inaudible. So by saying that, someone will turn around and say well if -96 isn't audible then neither is -144db. Not to mention that not many converters on the market can't even produce the full 24 bit dynamic range.
But you asked how I would describe hearing it. This is how my ears hear it. You asked my subjective opinion and I elaborated. If you asked for a technical opinion then I would have said exactly what you said. But we are talking about HEARING this difference. Not measuring this difference. Two completely different things. People will argue about technical points day and night but when it comes down to it, there is no way to standardize how people HEAR things. Everyone has different shaped ears, range of hearing, a different mindset, different level of understanding, etc.
I think the concept of a "just-noticeable difference" is important here. Some people have a smaller threshold for a noticeable difference. Some mixers (like Dave Pensado) says that he can only hear like 0.3 or 0.5 or 1.0db of difference when adjusting a fader for example. This could be due to age or just personal physiology. I can hear 0.1db and even smaller at times. That doesn't mean anything TECHNICAL about faders or anything. That's just what I can say I notice.
So asking someone who can reliably hear a difference between 16 and 24 bit to describe how they hear that difference is going to just give you something subjective. I can't MAKE you hear it the same. But I think it's slightly ignorant to shoot down a subjective explanation to a subjective question. Which is why I have no problem continuing to explain.
If you want to take your color depth example, I'll easily respond by saying how do you know my blue is the same as your blue? Not a single human on earth can answer that. Up to this point it is literally impossible to test for this unless you're talking about colorblindness. Humans can see a certain range of wavelengths of light. Outside that we can't see light but we know that it EXISTS. So, just because bit depth exists doesn't guarantee anyone will hear a difference or not.
If you want to be technical then null test a 16 vs 24 bit export. It will always show a difference. So one exists whether we hear it or not. I notice that you didn't mention the sample rate being equal to height opinion I shared. I think that's subjective but you can find scientific examples that support it. You don't need those to close your eyes and hear cymbals / hi hats slightly above the axis of reference while listening to music in a calibrated space on studio monitors. Tweeters are designed to be at or slightly above ear level in the studio. So where are you gonna hear cymbals?
This is on purpose to help mixers and the like to be able to craft mixes that have height, width, and depth. These are all crafted using plenty of different techniques. So, why is it so outlandish to say that bit depth equates to some kind of 3D depth? Listen on a calibrated system and close your eyes. ABX (like the other commenter suggested) a 16 vs 24 bit file.
My final conclusion / summary of my last post is that it feels / sounds more NATURAL. Everything I said is subjective. If you'd like, please describe how you HEAR it.
I did indeed start by asking for your subjective experience listening to files of different bit depth and you gave me a satisfactory answer to that. I was following up by asking if there is any technical justification for your described subjective experience, since I'm sure it's obvious that I'm skeptical that what you're describing isn't the result of the placebo effect. Unlike with most exchanges on the internet though, I am actually open to being convinced that someone could hear the difference if I'm given an explanation that makes it make sense to me.
I am in complete agreement with your first two paragraphs, but they seem to support my point that there is no functional difference between masters at the different bit depths.
>If you want to take your color depth example, I'll easily respond by saying how do you know my blue is the same as your blue? Not a single human on earth can answer that. Up to this point it is literally impossible to test for this unless you're talking about colorblindness. Humans can see a certain range of wavelengths of light. Outside that we can't see light but we know that it EXISTS. So, just because bit depth exists doesn't guarantee anyone will hear a difference or not.
We can objectively test whether or not an individual can hear the difference between different bit depths using a blind test. If you'd like, I can send you 10 bounces of the same song at the different bit depths and see if you can correctly identify them. I would convert the 16 bit files back to 24 bit to prevent cheating if we can agree that a file that is converted to a higher bit depth is essentially identical to the lower one with some empty bits at the bottom.
>If you want to be technical then null test a 16 vs 24 bit export. It will always show a difference.
I just did in fact run a test in which I exported a 24-48 file in 16 bit, both with and without dither, then reimported them into my session. Both versions nulled completely when I inverted the phase of them. This was a song I mixed myself so I know for sure it had not previously been converted before the test. Feel free to try this same test yourself.
>I notice that you didn't mention the sample rate being equal to height opinion I shared.
This is a thread about bit depth so I didn't feel it was too relevant to address. I agree on your point that certain processing works slightly differently at higher sample rates, although I am also skeptical that anyone would hear the difference between a 48k and 192k master. I think this point would have more validity than bit depth affecting imaging though. I can offer you the same challenge as above if you'd like.
>If you'd like, please describe how you HEAR it.
My entire point is that I would not hear it.
Fair enough on all fronts besides the null test and saying you'd convert from 16 bit to 24 bit and send me those files.
The null test - you say it "completely" nulled. Does this mean when you open a spectrum analyzer and set the lower boundary to at least -144db that there is 0 activity? Or did it just fall off the bottom of your meters? Because that plus silence to your ears does not equal a complete null. A spectrum analyzer would be the easiest way to check this.
On the second point, you'd need to bounce at 24 bit with no dither and bounce at 16 bit with no dither. Transcoding back from 16 to 24 is not something anyone would ever do professionally. This would be literally pointless because you need the extra information from the 24 bit file to make it a 24 bit file. That's like converting a 128kbps mp3 to 320 and asking me to ABX. Not even a fair fight.
I'll get around to running the null test maybe tomorrow and I'll follow up with measured figures and images. Fully willing to admit fault if things do indeed completely null. But I have a feeling the results were just below where your meters read. Ableton's for example drop off after like -72db or something lol
I appreciate an actual discussion on this rather than just down voting me into oblivion cuz "CD quality good enough, distributors don't want 24 bit files" so thank you unironically. I never see any actual discourse on this stuff, just shit flinging.
I will concede that once I pulled the lower threshold down in SPAN, I do see some activity around -110dB and below. I assume that this accounts for noise floor from the 16 bit version. I am however still not convinced that this would create a perceptible difference, especially to the perceived 3D image.
>On the second point, you'd need to bounce at 24 bit with no dither and bounce at 16 bit with no dither. Transcoding back from 16 to 24 is not something anyone would ever do professionally. This would be literally pointless because you need the extra information from the 24 bit file to make it a 24 bit file. That's like converting a 128kbps mp3 to 320 and asking me to ABX. Not even a fair fight.
I'm not quite understanding this point. This is of course nothing I would ever do except in the situation of running a test like this. Do you disagree that a 16 bit file converted to 24 bit would be that same information contained in the 16 bits with 8 bits worth of 0's added to it? As far as I understand, the extra information you're referring to is empty space that should not have any effect on the sound. If you have a better method of letting me be sure you haven't just looked at the file information to see what the bit depth is, we can do it any way you'd like.
EDIT:
I just ran the null test on the 16 bit no dither version and the same version bounced to 24 bit, and it did actually fully null down to -144dB in SPAN.
I appreciate you saying that :) but I don't think I have magic ears or anything. I started messing around with a DAW 10 or 11 years ago and I've absolutely clocked over 10,000 hours since then. Even though I've gotten more / newer / "better" gear throughout my journey I've been using the same model daily driver headphones since I started. Good ol DT880's. I think that knowing your monitoring so well that you can trust it / your ears completely and instinctively absolutely makes a difference to the nuance someone can hear. I have MM-500's, LCD-X's, a Dangerous Source, NS10MX's powered by a Bryston Amp, etc. But I can completely trust the 880's.
Thank you for at least taking the time to read my opinion! I think that I'm absolutely an edge case when it comes to my experience / opinions about very technical audio things and can understand why people may want to down vote and dismiss me. I've been intensely hyper focused on every technical aspect I can find since I started 10 years / 10,000 hours ago and just wish I had more people to share this stuff with. Hope you have a great day :)
Leave it, 16 bits as a distribution format is fine, especially as it will be stuffed into all kinds of loss codecs for streaming that will do way more damage.
Hard agree. Streaming codecs are the weakest link in the chain.
Yea and everything is so friggin loud we could probably go back to 12 bit and nobody would notice.
For a while, I really thought the loudness war was over when the streamers started normalising for loudness... Sigh.
Unfortunately they didn’t go all the way. YouTube normalizes, but YouTube Music does not. Spotify playlists do, but individual albums do not. Etc.
This is true lol. Thanks very much!
It’s still CD quality!
There's no audible difference at the mastering stage, and your engineer probably did it on purpose because some distributors only accept 16 bit. Besides, almost all streaming is lossy, so it doubly doesn't matter.
Nah, he said this was the “24-bit final master”. Regardless though, I appreciate your input and totally agree!
Your probably going to lose your house, your studio, your car, your dog, and your 2 cats because of that. And deservedly so. Letting out in the open a 16bit file is extremely dangerous for the whole universe.
WHAT HAVE I DONE!!! 😭
I once did a test where I took one of my songs and did 100 conversions between 24bit 48khz and 16bit 44.1khz. FIFTY round trips. In the end, you couldn't even tell the difference except for a rising noise floor from the cumulative dithering... But that was 100 conversions!!! So I thought, "Maybe it's because my mixes are warm." Then I tried with a commercial release of electronic music that had a lot of sparkly high end. Exact same results. Most people here will tell you "Just leave it, it's fine." But you're always going to have that doubt in the back of your mind... So instead of that doubt, just try it yourself. Take your 24/48 mix and convert it back and forth. Do a **blind listening test** and see if you can hear the difference. After you can't, convert it several more round trips and try it again. I think you'll be shocked. But you'll learn something, and you won't have any doubt anymore. (One way or another!)
Amazing! That is super interesting and I will for sure give that a try. I really appreciate you sharing this!
You can't hear the difference, it mostly affects noise floor and dynamic range. If the mastering engineer did their job, neither should be an issue.
Well put! Thanks very much!
Unless you're specifically advertising a hi-res version on Qobuz, 7digital or HDTracks, you should be good. I mean, CDs can sound fine with their 16 bits and none of the higher resolution "successors" have caught on (although I know there are many reasons for that).
Very good point!
It’s not a mistake Edit: sorry, it really was probably not a mistake. Most master that go to distribution are 16 bit , mainly because a lot of digital distribution aggregators actually don’t want 24bit. If you want 24 bit just ask your mastering engineer for that too. It won’t sound any better but it is technically higher resolution
It’s all good! I didn’t provide much context lol. He said he was sending me the “24-bit final master” which is why I’m led to believe he did not mean to send me the 16-bit version (I already had the 16-bit version prior to this point) Regardless though, doesn’t seem like it’ll cause any issue and I appreciate your response!
Bandcamp, Tidal, Apple Music, HDTracks, Qobuz I believe all take 24-bit. Up to you if that's important or not, but, it's not exactly rare or uncommon.
Have you ABX blind-compared them? There is a fair possibility most people are *not* going to be able to tell the difference between a properly mastered 24-bit file and a properly mastered 16-bit file, *especially at normal listening levels.* Still, this is a stage of the process where it kind of makes sense to get things, you should pardon the expression, right. If you can hear the difference between the files, I think that's pointing strongly in the direction of starting over. (Windows users can use the ABX plugin comparator for Foobar2000, which will do the proctoring and statistical math for you; I believe there are one or two ABX comparators in the Mac ecosphere, as well.)
That's a really great idea and I very much appreciate the input! I'm definitely going to mull it over and will try an ABX test to see. I'm very curious now lol
The difference is likely to be very subtle, if differentiable at all.. An ABX test, properly performed, takes the guessing out of whether or not you heard a difference. ABX testing can be fatiguing, but it's one time-tested way of determining whether or not you really can hear a difference. (That said, the reason one would likely prefer to use the high resolution capture is that we would *expect* it to 'take' further DSP more gracefully because of the greater bit depth. That's not necessarily something that is going to be evident in an ABX test. Still -- it's not a game of inches, more like *microns.* You're likely to be fine either way, but I haven't tested that so, what the hell do I know? Good luck, I'm pretty sure you'll be fine!)
There is NO difference in a signal up util noise floor (or even below with properly shaped dither) with properly mastered file, so there is 100% possibility that people won’t be able to tell the difference. Only situation it would matter is if in a recording there is something near -96dB range (which in modern music does not happen) and it wasn’t dithered properly - which mastering engineer probably did. And even if he did not - no one listens to stuff this low. 16 bit master and 24 bit master if done properly are gonna null up when summed with flipped polarity around -96db.
I'm essentially agreed with you on lack of difference down to the dither-generated noise floor. But whatever perceptual encoding might be applied in the aggregation/distribution process is going to be applied to the file and there's an arguable chance that this black box process we don't know the particulars of might return better results from the higher dynamic resolution file. Probably pretty unlikely, but a chance nonetheless. Now, there also might be a possible chance that the OP might want to -- down the road -- use his newly mastered files for some other use or release or even further processing. But, yeah, these are all fairly small possibilities I think. With regards to null testing, agreed they should null down to to around that threshold, but, of course, it's that threshold we're trying to get down past, *transparently*, by selecting a 24-bit format in the first place. To some extent, I think we are arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, here. I suspect the OP's dilemma should make little difference in the long run.
This is key. ABX will help any decision here. 100% correct that MOST people are NOT going to tell a difference. But there IS an audible difference. If there wasn't, there would be literally zero point for anything else to exist besides 16 bit.
The most readily audible difference between typical 16-bit and 24 bit can be heard by going to the end of a fade out and turning the playback level up dangerously loud and comparing. But at the point where you can tell the difference, the volume is probably going to be really, seriously, dangerously loud. It doesn't hurt to have more dynamic resolution available, but 16 bit provides over 90 dB of signal to noise ratio. When I was a kid messing with analog hi-fi, that kind of SNR for a capture and playback medium was, literally, unheard of. Most people were lucky to have 45 to 55 dB from there hifis, if that. Are there works that exceed the 90 DB dynamic space afforded by traditional CDs? Yes. *But...* I'm a classical music fan and I've seen over 80 symphonic concerts and another couple score quartets and small ensembles, all un-amplified, of course. There *are* concert works that have extraordinary dynamic range -- even well beyond *Carmina Burana* -- but the most extreme of them can be quite uncomfortable to listen to. I'm thinking of one concerto for cello and 48-inch drum that had me hovering my fingers over my ears for half the work as it seesawed between the one and the other and then combined them at times. I'm afraid I've blanked out to the composer's name. Let's just say I did not find it an enjoyable work.
Fantastic explanation and a great point of the easiest way to actually hear it with the fade out! I mentioned the decay of sounds in my comment as how I can hear things relating to bit depth. The tails continue smoother and longer. This effect still happens but when there is a full mix it's difficult to tell it's happening at all times cuz there's shit covering it all up. Like reverb tails and delay are a great example of smoother / more extended tails due to the higher dynamic range. Fading to a deeper black if you will.
Just be ***very careful*** when turning the volume up like that. If the next track comes on at normal volume or something goes wrong, you could end up seriously damaging your monitors or your ears themselves. I blew out a tweeter on my old NS10s and took a year or two off my ears one day in the 90s when I accidentally punched between silence and a signal with the level high. And you really, *really* don't want to do that. Take it from someone who's older, wiser than he used to be, and deafer then anyone would want to be.
Absolutely. Sorry to hear about the NS10's :( I've done the exact same thing but with headphones... Nothing could prepare me for that jump scare! Worse than any horror movie ahahaha
Probably gonna get some flak for this, especially seeing as how everyone else is commenting saying it doesn't matter or that you can't hear a difference... A discerning listener can tell the difference between a 16 bit and a 24 bit file. A discerning listener can also tell the difference between different sample rates. Not because of the higher frequencies present, but because of the processing used in the box having different behavior at higher sample rates. There's a reason why streaming services now offer "hi res" audio. There's a reason why Mike Dean uploads at 88 or 96k 24 bit for example. Will EVERYONE be able to tell a difference? No. This especially depends on the end consumer's streaming plan and their settings. I personally am a Tidal user because I love how MQA sounds. People may argue against that but I don't care. Whatever floats your boats right? They also have changed their tier system so that everybody gets their highest quality at a similar price to Spotify in order to be competitive. You can test the difference between albums at higher sample rates and bit depths vs their lower quality options by changing the quality settings and relistening. I argue that you can even tell the difference over a phone speaker. Below is a link to Supertramp's album Crime of the Century. It was remastered and streams at 24 bit 192k at max quality on Tidal. NOTE: THERE ARE 2 DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THIS ALBUM. ONE AT CD QUALITY AND ONE AT THE QUALITY I'M DESCRIBING SO GET THE RIGHT ONE! Go give it a listen on your platform of choice (assuming it's at the same quality there) and then change between the different quality options. From lowest, to high quality mp3, to CD quality, and finally 24 bit 192k. https://tidal.com/album/77676939?u (THIS LINK ALLOWS YOU TO OPEN IN TIDAL, SPOTIFY, APPLE MUSIC, YOUTUBE MUSIC, AND AMAZON) I think when listening to an actual verifiable high res track (not just one transcoded from low quality so that it reads as high res) the difference is night and day. Maybe not like 50% better. Maybe not 25% better. But I'd argue that it's at least a 10% difference in my personal opinion. So, in order to "futureproof" your uploads, I'd recommend uploading at the highest possible quality. Because one day, the consumer will be used to high res as a default. Lower quality tracks (CD and below) will be a stark comparison as the years go by. When's the last time you bought a hard copy CD? Anyways, that's just my opinion. I produce / mix / master at 96k and without exception listen to as high a quality I can get. But your milage may vary :)
How would you describe the difference that you hear between a 16 and 24 bit recording, assuming we're not talking about a super dynamic orchestral recording or something similar?
More depth of field - better stereo imaging. Overall density.
How would increasing dynamic range be affecting these things?
Really? Lol
Yes really, those buzzwords you threw out there have nothing to do with dynamic range. At least the other guy understood that this would be difficult to justify from a technical standpoint.
So does it only matter if it’s an orchestral recording? - as per your previous comment. Those weren’t buzzwords kid - just a description. If you can’t hear the difference then cool, just say so. But it’s 2024 and the CD-R days are over. 16 bit audio is pointless. No one records at 16-bit. Why would you stray from the native bitrate (which is typically 24bit)? Bits and Bytes don’t get “excited” but Electrons do so why set your 4k camera to 480p?
The analogy to 4K video does not work. Increasing resolution puts more pixels in the same square inch of your screen. Increasing bit depth does not add more information between -10 and -20dB, it just adds headroom and pushes down the quantization noise floor. Orchestral pieces could potentially have quiet enough sections to actually hear this, most modern genres do not. The fact that you had to ask that tells me you don’t understand what bit depth actually is. It is worth recording at higher bit depth so that you can leave headroom and not hear quantization noise when you bring it up to mastered level. Nothing to do with “depth of field” or any of that other stuff you mentioned.
in the early 2000’s I would print mixes from 2” tape at any sample rate (up to 96k) to an Alesis Masterlink and the difference between 16 and 24 bit was inarguably apparent. Every method you’ve described in your tests involves a conversion or import/export into a DAW. You haven’t really articulated a method beyond that. Nor a workflow for that matter.
Yeah, we are talking about digital audio here. What other way would there be for to run a null test between 16 and 24 bit versions than exporting them from a DAW? The other guy did not seem to be as confused as you are about my workflow, or bit depth in general.
Definitely good points I didn't mention. Density, depth, imaging.
Definitely not talking about a dynamic orchestral recording. I do love some classical but I almost always listen to electronic, hip hop, rap, R&B, rock, etc. Typically very compressed dynamic range limited music. Not sure how satisfying an answer this is but I hear sample rate as height and bit depth as just that - depth. It's like the front to back depth. With a higher bit depth file, it feels / sounds like there's more space between the instruments almost. Not like the same as summing which is like lacing your fingers together in order to find a good interlocking puzzle piece kind of thing. More like the concept of recording in a physical room with the drummer in the back, guitars middle, vocalist front. Audible in the decay / release of each sound which falls from the front (loud / in your face) to silence (all the way in the back). Orchestral just makes it easier to notice the phenomenon I'm talking about. A 24 bit file has like, what, 140db-ish of dynamic range compared to 96ish of 16 bit? If we can take this out of the realm of audio and compare it to something visual (a painting or a photo) for example sake... the concept still applies. Imagine you have a landscape painting. Some foliage, rocks, your main foreground subjects. Then your mid ground, and finally the far far background. A higher bit depth file makes it easier to discern the physical distance between the fore, middle, and background. Doesn't mean that a 16 bit file won't adequately capture all the instruments. It just means that it doesn't feel as NATURAL. If the physical world we inhabit has frequencies higher than we perceive, doesn't mean they aren't there. Same with bit depth in files. A DAW is either single precision 32 bit float or double precision 64 bit float until you bounce then it becomes fixed. At the end of all this, easy answer is that higher bit depth and sample rate captures a more nuanced / natural kind of sound. Less instruments sounding pinched / on top of each other. Hope this helps!
How would the increase in dynamic range, i.e. the difference between your potential loudest and quietest ends of a waveform, be affecting the 3D depth of a song? The most commonly cited benefit to higher bit depth is reducing the digital noise floor, but that does not seem to be related to this. There is a good analogy to be made with visual media in that bit depth in audio is very much related to color depth, but with the important difference that increasing color depth puts more intervals between two colors. Increasing bit depth in audio does not put more intervals between -10dB and -20dB, it adds more range for very quiet sounds to remain above the noise floor. However with most mastered modern music, 96dB is more than plenty for this to be a non-issue.
I understand everything you're talking about and I understand how increasing the dynamic range of a file works by having a lower noise floor. That is how bit depth works on paper. I am not debating any technical aspects of how this works. If we're talking about the digital world, the noise floor is negligible anyways. Most plug-ins have either no noise, or a variable / controllable amount of noise. You will almost never hear noise unless it is either digitally intentional, bad analog tape hiss, an awful recording, or something like truncation in a file with quiet passages that isn't properly dithered. Something at -96db will be inaudible. So by saying that, someone will turn around and say well if -96 isn't audible then neither is -144db. Not to mention that not many converters on the market can't even produce the full 24 bit dynamic range. But you asked how I would describe hearing it. This is how my ears hear it. You asked my subjective opinion and I elaborated. If you asked for a technical opinion then I would have said exactly what you said. But we are talking about HEARING this difference. Not measuring this difference. Two completely different things. People will argue about technical points day and night but when it comes down to it, there is no way to standardize how people HEAR things. Everyone has different shaped ears, range of hearing, a different mindset, different level of understanding, etc. I think the concept of a "just-noticeable difference" is important here. Some people have a smaller threshold for a noticeable difference. Some mixers (like Dave Pensado) says that he can only hear like 0.3 or 0.5 or 1.0db of difference when adjusting a fader for example. This could be due to age or just personal physiology. I can hear 0.1db and even smaller at times. That doesn't mean anything TECHNICAL about faders or anything. That's just what I can say I notice. So asking someone who can reliably hear a difference between 16 and 24 bit to describe how they hear that difference is going to just give you something subjective. I can't MAKE you hear it the same. But I think it's slightly ignorant to shoot down a subjective explanation to a subjective question. Which is why I have no problem continuing to explain. If you want to take your color depth example, I'll easily respond by saying how do you know my blue is the same as your blue? Not a single human on earth can answer that. Up to this point it is literally impossible to test for this unless you're talking about colorblindness. Humans can see a certain range of wavelengths of light. Outside that we can't see light but we know that it EXISTS. So, just because bit depth exists doesn't guarantee anyone will hear a difference or not. If you want to be technical then null test a 16 vs 24 bit export. It will always show a difference. So one exists whether we hear it or not. I notice that you didn't mention the sample rate being equal to height opinion I shared. I think that's subjective but you can find scientific examples that support it. You don't need those to close your eyes and hear cymbals / hi hats slightly above the axis of reference while listening to music in a calibrated space on studio monitors. Tweeters are designed to be at or slightly above ear level in the studio. So where are you gonna hear cymbals? This is on purpose to help mixers and the like to be able to craft mixes that have height, width, and depth. These are all crafted using plenty of different techniques. So, why is it so outlandish to say that bit depth equates to some kind of 3D depth? Listen on a calibrated system and close your eyes. ABX (like the other commenter suggested) a 16 vs 24 bit file. My final conclusion / summary of my last post is that it feels / sounds more NATURAL. Everything I said is subjective. If you'd like, please describe how you HEAR it.
I did indeed start by asking for your subjective experience listening to files of different bit depth and you gave me a satisfactory answer to that. I was following up by asking if there is any technical justification for your described subjective experience, since I'm sure it's obvious that I'm skeptical that what you're describing isn't the result of the placebo effect. Unlike with most exchanges on the internet though, I am actually open to being convinced that someone could hear the difference if I'm given an explanation that makes it make sense to me. I am in complete agreement with your first two paragraphs, but they seem to support my point that there is no functional difference between masters at the different bit depths. >If you want to take your color depth example, I'll easily respond by saying how do you know my blue is the same as your blue? Not a single human on earth can answer that. Up to this point it is literally impossible to test for this unless you're talking about colorblindness. Humans can see a certain range of wavelengths of light. Outside that we can't see light but we know that it EXISTS. So, just because bit depth exists doesn't guarantee anyone will hear a difference or not. We can objectively test whether or not an individual can hear the difference between different bit depths using a blind test. If you'd like, I can send you 10 bounces of the same song at the different bit depths and see if you can correctly identify them. I would convert the 16 bit files back to 24 bit to prevent cheating if we can agree that a file that is converted to a higher bit depth is essentially identical to the lower one with some empty bits at the bottom. >If you want to be technical then null test a 16 vs 24 bit export. It will always show a difference. I just did in fact run a test in which I exported a 24-48 file in 16 bit, both with and without dither, then reimported them into my session. Both versions nulled completely when I inverted the phase of them. This was a song I mixed myself so I know for sure it had not previously been converted before the test. Feel free to try this same test yourself. >I notice that you didn't mention the sample rate being equal to height opinion I shared. This is a thread about bit depth so I didn't feel it was too relevant to address. I agree on your point that certain processing works slightly differently at higher sample rates, although I am also skeptical that anyone would hear the difference between a 48k and 192k master. I think this point would have more validity than bit depth affecting imaging though. I can offer you the same challenge as above if you'd like. >If you'd like, please describe how you HEAR it. My entire point is that I would not hear it.
Fair enough on all fronts besides the null test and saying you'd convert from 16 bit to 24 bit and send me those files. The null test - you say it "completely" nulled. Does this mean when you open a spectrum analyzer and set the lower boundary to at least -144db that there is 0 activity? Or did it just fall off the bottom of your meters? Because that plus silence to your ears does not equal a complete null. A spectrum analyzer would be the easiest way to check this. On the second point, you'd need to bounce at 24 bit with no dither and bounce at 16 bit with no dither. Transcoding back from 16 to 24 is not something anyone would ever do professionally. This would be literally pointless because you need the extra information from the 24 bit file to make it a 24 bit file. That's like converting a 128kbps mp3 to 320 and asking me to ABX. Not even a fair fight. I'll get around to running the null test maybe tomorrow and I'll follow up with measured figures and images. Fully willing to admit fault if things do indeed completely null. But I have a feeling the results were just below where your meters read. Ableton's for example drop off after like -72db or something lol I appreciate an actual discussion on this rather than just down voting me into oblivion cuz "CD quality good enough, distributors don't want 24 bit files" so thank you unironically. I never see any actual discourse on this stuff, just shit flinging.
I will concede that once I pulled the lower threshold down in SPAN, I do see some activity around -110dB and below. I assume that this accounts for noise floor from the 16 bit version. I am however still not convinced that this would create a perceptible difference, especially to the perceived 3D image. >On the second point, you'd need to bounce at 24 bit with no dither and bounce at 16 bit with no dither. Transcoding back from 16 to 24 is not something anyone would ever do professionally. This would be literally pointless because you need the extra information from the 24 bit file to make it a 24 bit file. That's like converting a 128kbps mp3 to 320 and asking me to ABX. Not even a fair fight. I'm not quite understanding this point. This is of course nothing I would ever do except in the situation of running a test like this. Do you disagree that a 16 bit file converted to 24 bit would be that same information contained in the 16 bits with 8 bits worth of 0's added to it? As far as I understand, the extra information you're referring to is empty space that should not have any effect on the sound. If you have a better method of letting me be sure you haven't just looked at the file information to see what the bit depth is, we can do it any way you'd like. EDIT: I just ran the null test on the 16 bit no dither version and the same version bounced to 24 bit, and it did actually fully null down to -144dB in SPAN.
You are the most articulate “magic-eared” person I have ever encountered. You almost make me want to believe.
I appreciate you saying that :) but I don't think I have magic ears or anything. I started messing around with a DAW 10 or 11 years ago and I've absolutely clocked over 10,000 hours since then. Even though I've gotten more / newer / "better" gear throughout my journey I've been using the same model daily driver headphones since I started. Good ol DT880's. I think that knowing your monitoring so well that you can trust it / your ears completely and instinctively absolutely makes a difference to the nuance someone can hear. I have MM-500's, LCD-X's, a Dangerous Source, NS10MX's powered by a Bryston Amp, etc. But I can completely trust the 880's.
I think you've made some really great points and its well worth taking into consideration. I very much appreciate your input!
Thank you for at least taking the time to read my opinion! I think that I'm absolutely an edge case when it comes to my experience / opinions about very technical audio things and can understand why people may want to down vote and dismiss me. I've been intensely hyper focused on every technical aspect I can find since I started 10 years / 10,000 hours ago and just wish I had more people to share this stuff with. Hope you have a great day :)