converters >>

[sandman]

"It´s kind of stupid to buy $$$ 24 bit converters and end up with 1db of dynamic range "

what he means ? : (

[TooLoud]

He means limiting and compressing (squashing) everything to death...you end up with no more dynamics.

[ThomCat]

Isn't bit depth more related to resolution than to dynamic range? If you squeeze a mix or a track to a very low dynamic range, one squeezed from a 24 bit source should still sound better than one squeezed from 16, all else being equal. In fact, depending upon how much you bring up the originally lower dynamics using compression, those with better resolution will sound much better than those without good resolution due to the low-level artifacts being raised in level.

If your music is recorded very dry and has every note cranked to 11 all the way through, it's true that the benefits of greater resolution won't be as apparent as they would to typical classical music, or to jazz with some semblance of dynamic range and ambience involved, but that's merely a difference in dynamic range, and greater bit depth improves quality at all levels of dynamic range, while increasingly more at lower levels.

If you never have a single lower-level note or a reverb tail in your mix and all instruments are mixed at top level all the time, it's true that the benefits of extended bit depth won't buy you much, but there's likely nothing else that can improve it much either, and you'd have a hard time getting anyone to listen to it anyway.

It's likely only stupid if the benefits would be wiped out. For 99% of music that sells, they won't.