Okay guys, we’ve had plenty of mp3 vs. aac vs. flac vs. wav vs. whatever discussions on the forums here. Now apple and other retailers supposedly plan to offer 24 bit audio files, according to CNN and other sites:
No details if it would be a lossy compression format or some lossless format.
I personally would like that and think there’s a lot of potential of finally getting a significant increase in audio quality. Although I have some doubts that that music productions especially in the EDM genres would actually benefit from that too much. Most people I know still use their 16bit sample libraries a lot.
OVERRATED 24bit audio is the same fight as the 44.1vs96Khz
24bit audio is mainly used by people who need their epeens as large as possible and that have all their analyzers and whatnot. You wont notice a damn bit of difference in the end unless you’re superman
Honestly, I’m not so sure about that. I mean, I’m pretty much happy with 320kbit/16bit/44.1khz so far, but I admit that there are a tiny handful of older rock or vocal albums I actuallly bought again on vinyl, because I felt they somehow kind of sounded, well, better, from an analog source. I guess i’ll only be able to tell if 24bit it will make a difference to me as soon as it’s actually available. I think it’s at least possible that there will be some improvement, at least if they also come in lossless formats.
On the other hand, supposedly superior formats like SACD never really made it.
Audio is only as good as the weakest link in the chain. Audiophile obsession is a fool’s errand I reckon. Although I would say that 'cos my hearing isn’t what it was.
^^^ I’m really a layperson on this whole issue. What am I excited about this? Basically, I hope that 24-bit audio gives me additional headroom/dynamics. Over the last year, I’ve been able to grab a few original high-resolution masters here and there. All the 24-bit stuff I got felt less heavily compressed.
wont change much also there are dsp converters which I think is stupid but the only things I see up at 24bit audio are things I wouldnt listen to such as orchestra and ambient stuff. otherwise you will usually only find mostly 16bit 44.1 also due to file sizes
That and do you think they are gonna hear the difference when there’s other people making noise? People dont just sit down at a party to only hear the music and bicker back and forth about the quality of it. Also you would need proper sound setup in a studio like room to probably even tell the difference.
So if my old Nintendo produces 8 bit and a CD is 16 bit quality, what is an example of 24 bit audio? Is it something I would hear on a blu-ray disk? I’d like to know what 24 bit sounds like.
I think I would still be happy with 16 bit, but IMO I’d like to see Apple bump up their bit rate on the itunes store from 256 VBR to 320 VBR preferably CBR as I like AAC over MP3 format.
