Jay - atldigi wrote:

with a 24 bit
chip you know that it can convey the best the converter electronics can
throw at it, and those are the chips available, so it makes sense that
they would be used by designers. And there are some recording situations
where you can use more than 16 bits, so I have no problem having it
available and using it since storage is cheap.

Also: due to the way computers store information, 18 bit PCM takes the
same amount of disk space as does 24 bit PCM (and often the same amount
as does 32 bit floating point PCM data.)