Quote:

I can indeed start to hear hiss if I take a recording that I made perhaps 25 dB down in 16 bit, then boost it up 20 dB. Try that experiment for yourself.



Scott.

The first thing I ask myself is - why would someone with your obvious knowledge and experience want to record anything 25db down?

One thing you must remember is that you have a theoretical dynamic range of your digital recording medium, but an actual one based on the noise floor from the inherent noise in the signal chain. If, for example, you put a cheap mic in front of an old Marshall tube amp, your dynamic range is, I think the technical term is "shot-to-hell". Even just a good mic through an expensive pre-amp will have a noise floor higher than the digital medium. The experienced engineer will will know how to minimize these problems and get the best results out of the available gear.

You'll notice that I agreed with the main 16/24 argument in my earlier post. I was just making the point that we encourage people to up-grade more often than we tell them to get some specialized training.

ROG.

Last edited by ROG; 06/08/12 11:16 AM.
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