When we got into digital audio, everything was easier. The products recorded and generated in digital audio were all in 16 bit. The Compact Discs, the main method of music distribution has a bit depth of 16 bits and a sample rate of 44.1 kHz
Gradually, the products began to appear with greater Bit Depth until the recordings reached 24 bit today. But what does all this mean and how important is it. To start, let’s define the terms.
–Bit Depth (bit depth) refers to the number of bits the audio has to capture. The easiest way to visualize this is as a series of levels, which can be sliced audio energy at a given time. With 16-bit audio, there are 65,536 possible levels. With all the higher resolution bits, the number of levels is doubled. By the time we reach 24 bits, we actually have 16777216 levels. Remember that we are talking about a frozen audio segment in an instant of time.
Now, let’s add our friend time to our explanation … and that is when we find the Sample Rate.
–Sample Rate is the number of times your sound is measured per second (samples). So in the Red Book standard for CDs the sampling frequency is 44.1 kHz or 44,100 samples every second. So what is the sampling rate 96 kHz? You guessed it. It is 96,000 audio samples shown every second.
Therefore, to make things clear:
-24/96 recording means higher audio resolution-more than 250 times higher than in 16 / 44.1
-The recording in 24/96 occupies approximately 3.25 times the recording space in 16 / 44.1
Now we are going to get to the subjective part of how music plays at these different bit depths and sampling frequencies. No one can quantify how much better a song recorded on 24/96 will sound. The fact that a 24/96 file has 250 times the audio resolution does not mean it will sound 250 times better, but it will not even sound twice as high. Actually, unless you have a very trained ear and a very good audio system you won’t even notice the difference. Can you hear the difference between a CD / MP3 file and a wave or vinyl file? If so, then you are likely to notice the difference between 24 bits and 16 bits of audio. Now, let’s try to be more objective with everything.
Let’s talk about the Sample Rate and the Nyquist theory. This theory says that the current upper threshold of a piece of digital audio will reach its maximum in the middle of the Sample Rate. So if you are recording at 44.1, the highest frequencies are generated around 22 kHz, this is 2kHz higher than typical human capacity with an excellent ear. Experts and music lovers have claimed since the beginning of digital audio that vinyl records are a better sound system than digital audio. In fact, you can find evidence that analog recording and playback equipment can be measured up to 50 kHz, more than double our listening threshold. Here is the great mystery. The theory is that audio energy, although I don’t hear it, exists as it has an effect on the lowest frequencies we can feel. Returning to Nyquist’s theory, a 96 kHz sampling rate will result in the potential audio output at 48 kHz, not far from analog sound reproduction. This leads us to assume that the same principle is applicable. The audio has been improved in a threshold that we cannot perceive but that makes us hear it “better”, however confusing this may seem.
Having understood all this, we already have the basis for our next article in the 24-bit audio player equipment blog and the need for storage, where our QNAP Turbo NAS come in. We will see as brands like Linn, known worldwide in the world of music for the most enthusiastic, recommends the QNAP brand as a store for all our music libraries.
