In article , "Roger W. Norman"
wrote:

"real world audio", then it's possible that 24 isn't better than 16 if
real world audio recording is accomplished in a room where quiet is
represented by about -55 dB of room noise,

There certainly are a number of situations - probably a majority if
we're talking about most popular music styles, where more than 16 bits
most likely won't help. That's true enough. And also. there are no
situations where an ADC at 24 bits is strictly necessary since there
aren't any converters that can reproduce 144 dB dynamic range. 20 would
be a practical way to go, with the exceedingly rare converter perhaps
approaching the equivalent of 21 bits and change. But hey, 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. That's quite different
from saying you NEED it always, or you need it for final delivery on the
new Metallica record. One needs to understand all the details of digital
audio to know when it helps, when it doesn't, and why. There's not a
"one size fits all" answer.

In your real world audio, Jay, as a mastering engineer, you
obviously should work at the highest resolution one can give you,

I can tell you that the minute you string a bunch of processors
together, especially if one has tubes, the noise floor in any mastering
room will likely be at least a little above 16 bits. however, there is
still useful and audible signal that can happen within the noise, so it
certainly pays to convert with more than 16 bits to be as certain as
possible you're getting everything you can. As far as processing goes,
you want as many bits as you can throw at it. That's different criteria.

In 16 bit products it was normal to see -.1 dBFS levels with
absolutely no room for a mastering engineer to do anything but bring it
down in order to bring it back up.

Yeah, that's a pain. Well, not really, but one more unneccesary step.

--
Jay Frigoletto
Mastersuite
Los Angeles
promastering.com