Jay - atldigi wrote in
:

In article , Carey
Carlan wrote:

Is your argument that this higher precision is inaudible?

excerpts of Jay's reply :

The transfer function really does become linear with dither.
The limitation is that the noise floor can be plainly
audible in low resolution systems.
However, within it's available dynamic range, the system is infinite.
You can't get better than that, even if you throw more bits at it.

Therefore, your answer is "No". Dithering smooths out the differences
between the 65,535 steps, making them as smooth as the 16 million steps.

Add more bits, the noise floor drops, and you can resolve smaller
(quieter) details.

So, while the bits between the higher samples aren't necessary because
dithering smooths out the differences, the bottom 256 values between 16-bit
1 and 16-bit 0 allow you to use finer, quieter dithering that drops the
noise floor by 48 dB (ideally).

Thank you! I think I understand now.