CD vs. 24-bit streaming - Sound of the past vs. sound of the future (Turntable tips)

how much better is 24-bit streaming than 16-bit CD CD uses 16 bits we use 24 bits now and 24 bits must be 8 Bits better or one and a half times better or chalk and cheese better mustn't it that's a light-hearted comment I made in my video the CD Revival so wrong on so many levels which I've Linked In the description below but an analytically minded commenter came back saying 24 bit is one and a half times better than 16 bit shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Digital Data each extra bit doubles the available values so 24 bit is 256 times the resolution of 16 bit he's not wrong 16-bit CD quality digital audio encodes the analog signal into 65 536 levels 24-bit digital audio has 16 million 777 216 levels 256 times more I have a calculator but 256 times better this clearly shows that a 24-bit streaming service will be 256 times better than a CD of the same music analytically speaking okay let me deal with the topic of 24-bit streaming services they do exist aren't they not Spotify title offers such a service and so does Apple music there is a caveat here in that Apple uses the apple lossless audio codec which according to their claims is indeed lossless and includes all of the data of the original 24-bit master tidal uses the mqa codec which stands for master quality authenticated which is according to good old Wikipedia and other sources lossy lossy means not lossless not lossless means not the same as the original 24-bit Master not the same means different but I digress in the future the internet will have more bandwidth and we'll all be able to listen to genuine lossless digital Masters in 24 bits not the measly 16 of CD 256 times better 256 times better I choose to disagree I couldn't possibly say that 24 bits are not any better than 16 clearly they are eight bits better one and a half times better as I said in my previous video there's stuff to unpack here I look at this another way in terms of decibels in theory each bit of a digital audio signal gives six decibels of dynamic range or resolution if you want to put it like that there's more detail you can go into if you wish but six decibels per bit will do for now so in theory compact disc has a possible dynamic range of 96 decibels from Peak to noise floor 24 big digital audio has a massive 144 decibels to put this in context the dynamic range of the human ear is often quoted as 120 decibels ranging from a falling Autumn Leaf at 20 Paces up to a Metallica speaker stack as close as you can bear it so we could say that CD Falls a little short of this and 24-bit digital audio has a significant comfort zone but where can you find a listening environment where you can enjoy your full 120 DB dynamic range maybe on your spacewalk from the International Space Station on your NASA approved earbuds I'm going to say that 96 decibels of dynamic range is more than enough to cover anything you can hear from your music Source in any real world listening environment to give my own context back in the day the signal to noise ratio of a professional IE studer tape recorder would be around 65 DB I could ignore the noise if I put my mind to it with Dolby type A noise reduction this would increase to 75 DB noise didn't bother me at all so for me 75 DB of signal to noise ratio is enough I'll just mention that die hard commenters might want to explain the difference between signal to noise ratio and dynamic range but it's the same enough for me to make my point here if 75 DB of dynamic range between clipping and the noise floor is enough for me I suspect it's enough for a lot of people and CD gives 20 decibels more give or take a rounding error and Theory versus practice would seem therefore that 16-bit CD quality is good enough and 24-bit is overkill and not really 256 times better subjectively hold your horses if I said that 75 DB is enough well consider that your new fancy car going at full Pelt can achieve a top speed of 70 miles per hour which is the highest limit in the UK that's enough isn't it clearly that isn't the case you might never want to go faster than 70 miles an hour but surely you'd feel better if you could if you wanted to and feel better that your car has more than enough top speed in reserve so that 70 miles an hour is just cruising same with audio just enough isn't enough more than enough is enough to be absolutely sure that no one in any circumstances is going to hear any noise due to the format and that's CD you will never hear any noise due to the format if you think you can in the comments but once again just enough is not enough and we have to consider the digital audio signal before it gets onto the CD in the olden days of professional audio we would use 16-bit Master recorders such as the Sony 1610 format and dat so there was no Headroom above or beyond the CD delivery format if you wanted to make the most of CD then you had to be very precise with levels to hit that highest bit as hard as you could without clipping and in the old days we didn't worry about inter-sample Peaks because we didn't know any better at the time and if you could achieve that the finished CD on sale to the public would be just fine but as professionals we prefer to have what I like to call Professional Headroom you're working with equipment and processes that are better than your end Market has access to this can apply in all kinds of areas outside of audio your window cleaner for example should be able to remove even the smallest spec that only another window cleaner would be able to see working to a standard that's just enough that the householder can't see is not what I'd call Professional so this is why we have 24-bit audio in the studio we have eight bits of professional Headroom so that we can relax and concentrate on the music and the musical sounds we don't have to worry about any degradation due to the recording format because if there is any then the listener at home won't and can't hear it so when I said previously that 24 bits are one and a half times better or as my commenter said 256 times better I'd settle on what I described as chalk and cheese better well it's not quite that but the difference between having professional Headroom and no Headroom at all over what the listener can hear is a very nice thing to have for the professional but does The Listener need 24-bit digital audio not really I'd say what the listener needs is 16 bits packed full all the way to -1 dbtp that's minus one decibels relative to True Peak maybe another video for that but in layperson's terms all the way to the top take the best 16 bits from your 24-bit master and you have the perfect sound for either CD or streaming I know I've raised a lot of points here and there will be many shades of opinion that differ from mine that's why we have a comment section see you soon

Channel: Audio Masterclass

Views: 380,443

Keywords: CD, Compact Disc, streamin, 16-bit, 24-bit, dynamic range, noise

Id: dirITnwJG6k

Length: 8min 30sec (510 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 15 2023