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Post by johneppstein on Jan 28, 2019 19:52:51 GMT -6
I'm personally excited to see this. I know there's obvious bias against it being an improvement, as so many people don't want to spend money on new converters ;P Nonsense..
Increased bit depth merely extends s the noise floor (downward.)
The noise floor of 24 bit is already well below the level of audibility. The amount of available dynamic range is sufficient to record the engine of a 747 without distortion (assuming adequate analog electronics.)
For scientific/engineering measurements it might be a significant improvement.
For audio? Are you Sirius?
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 28, 2019 19:59:39 GMT -6
For Live sound the 32 bit extra headroom is great I'd think. I don't see how someone wouldn't be for more bits on the front end of any audio device. It just makes it that much harder to clip. Seems worth it to me. I record in 384kHz a lot. I also think its worth it though and plenty would disagree on that front..but whatever. I think clipping has less to do with the bit depth of a converter. You can easily clip a 32 bit converter if the supply rail can't cope with the incoming line level signal. I guess the biggest problem with the 384kHz/32bit is its size which is over 5 times what is considered to be a standard mastering grade format at the moment (96kHz, 24bit). Bit depth is not related to rail voltage.
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Post by jin167 on Jan 28, 2019 20:08:43 GMT -6
I think clipping has less to do with the bit depth of a converter. You can easily clip a 32 bit converter if the supply rail can't cope with the incoming line level signal. I guess the biggest problem with the 384kHz/32bit is its size which is over 5 times what is considered to be a standard mastering grade format at the moment (96kHz, 24bit). Bit depth is not related to rail voltage. obviously.
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 28, 2019 20:28:19 GMT -6
Bit depth is not related to rail voltage. obviously. So if you clip the converter it's because you're (not you personally) are an idiot and are feedind the converter a WAY hot signal. Which is totally unneccessary if you understand gain structure because the noise floor of 24 bit is way, way below the realm of audibility. (I am not considering the issue of using clipping as a substitute for compression because it's not relevant to the conversation.)
You cannot technically compensate for human idiocy. There will always be some knothead who wants to track at 0dB. Because he read somewhere that that's how people did it back in the tape days.
A 32 bit converter is no protection against bad practice.
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Post by christopher on Jan 28, 2019 20:50:51 GMT -6
I’ve noticed some ********slight************ difference In printing to 32bit, when doing ITB renders. This may be only on my specific machine, using my specific setup, which is Reaper/ mac or PC — (not the most expensive DAW out there, so suspect right there) And it bothers me ****slightly**** now that I nailed it down. I’ll be the first to say I hate my mixes, but where I can usually make up points (to myself) is the “color” of the sound at least. Maybe my balance won’t translate like I imagined, but the rosey color I heard while mixing I’ll be satisfied with. After much trial and error, disappointment for years, I discovered 32bitFP or 64bit FP kept that smooth thing I heard, the other options wouldn’t. I tried every option, all the dither and noise shaping. I accredit it to floating point though, and somehow going from a 64 bit floating point to a 24bit set value must have some errors that make it less true to what I heard. I’ve know about this for years actually, when floating point first came out I experienced the same frustration, and always turned off floating point. Until about mid 2000s I just decided I was crazy, and turning it on would be fine. And then every update reset to on anyway, so I forgot all about it.
all this said, I’ll happily use 16bit if it sounds good/ well made design
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Post by jin167 on Jan 28, 2019 21:08:11 GMT -6
So if you clip the converter it's because you're (not you personally) are an idiot and are feedind the converter a WAY hot signal. Which is totally unneccessary if you understand gain structure because the noise floor of 24 bit is way, way below the realm of audibility. (I am not considering the issue of using clipping as a substitute for compression because it's not relevant to the conversation.)
You cannot technically compensate for human idiocy. There will always be some knothead who wants to track at 0dB. Because he read somewhere that that's how people did it back in the tape days.
A 32 bit converter is no protection against bad practice.
exactly, which is what motivated me to start this threaded in the first place.
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,934
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Post by ericn on Jan 28, 2019 21:53:35 GMT -6
For Live sound the 32 bit extra headroom is great I'd think. I don't see how someone wouldn't be for more bits on the front end of any audio device. It just makes it that much harder to clip. Seems worth it to me. I record in 384kHz a lot. I also think its worth it though and plenty would disagree on that front..but whatever. I think clipping has less to do with the bit depth of a converter. You can easily clip a 32 bit converter if the supply rail can't cope with the incoming line level signal. I guess the biggest problem with the 384kHz/32bit is its size which is over 5 times what is considered to be a standard mastering grade format at the moment (96kHz, 24bit). I think that’s over thinking a bit the most common cause of clipping no matter the bit depth will always be gain staging!
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Post by popmann on Jan 29, 2019 9:42:42 GMT -6
32bit float format is not what this is doing. Floating point format files (which most DAWs support now) are simply the raw output of their floating point mixer. It sounds better because the DAW doesn't properly reduce to 24bit. It doesn't sound better than taking that 32bit float and dithering it to 24bit....as the OP showed with whatever music nulling to 8 bit or whatever....it's all about how/when/well it's reduced. Either way--the similarity is, that any potential benefit involves digital DSP and code efficiencies....not fidelity to analog input. You SHOULD be rendering to native float out of your DAW....then properly dithering directly to destination from that...don't confuse that with what this interface proposes. Which, again, my shit electrical understanding is should be meaningless since 24bit allows the quantization noise be pushed below the analog noise floor itself....but, I have no stake in not being wrong. I'm living in a post ego world. ...ha....
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Post by jin167 on Jan 29, 2019 10:16:50 GMT -6
I don't think I have seen a converter that does floating point (in an audio application at least).
To avoid further confusion, I do understand the differences between floating and fixed point and I'm only using the yamaha's interface as an example as it has just been released and made available to the public at a reasonable price point (and I have a feeling that this is only the beginning and we will be seeing more of these '32 bit' converters in the near future).
32 bit converter seems to make sense in certain designs like the yamaha's new interface (internal dsp, cubase) but in general, there seems to no real benefit in recording in 32 bit.
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Post by popmann on Jan 29, 2019 10:44:04 GMT -6
It wouldn't. I don't think it's apples to apples...floating point is a format of storing some LESSER word length...in a format that can "losslessly" alter it's gain without losing bit resolution. It's not 32bits of sample data.
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 29, 2019 13:39:24 GMT -6
It wouldn't. I don't think it's apples to apples...floating point is a format of storing some LESSER word length...in a format that can "losslessly" alter it's gain without losing bit resolution. It's not 32bits of sample data. Floating point is used for internal computations within the DAW software to avoid cumulative truncation/rounding errors caused by computations resulting in remainders that exceed 24 bits. With 32 bit float you only get truncation once, when the data is output through the converter at 24 bits, instead of repeated rounding/truncation errors that would add up within the DAW's math. At least that's as best as I can remember the explanation. I'm neither a coder nor a mathematecian.
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Post by Guitar on Jan 30, 2019 11:15:39 GMT -6
This is a funny question for me because I recently moved from 96 back down to 48 for my projects. 384/32 sounds kind of insane. On my PC I think I'd get maybe 3 or 4 tracks or something before overrunning the CPU during the mix. Maybe it would be great for classical, jazz, and acoustic music with minimal processing.
I must admit that I am intrigued, but I agree with people who are saying conversion isn't really a big question and hasn't been for a while. I put much less emphasis on it than I used to. Even my old Echo Audiofire stuff still sounds "Good" to me. My silver Apollo stuff sounds fine. I still think those little Scarlett red Focusrite things sound kind of grainy and thin. Some of the cheap Presonus stuff from a while back doesn't hold up too great either. The threshold between bad and good is only a question of a few hundred bucks at most, and knowing which specific boxes to avoid.
I reserve a special place, however, for a stereo DAC to feed my monitor speakers and headphones. That one, I place a lot of scrutiny on.
I've had decent luck with Steinberg interfaces, they are really throwing down the gauntlet with this one at $2,800, it's going to have to pass a lot of tests. At that price, competition is very stiff.
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Post by Blackdawg on Jan 30, 2019 11:38:14 GMT -6
The key to running DXD stuff is not doing in Natively. Similar to HDX, Pryamix has a Masscore system that is dedicated hardware. I do 13-16 track 2+ hour concerts in DXD all summer long. And recently just did recording sessions where we had 13 hours of audio in a session with 13 tracks. The computer doesn't like it when you zoom out to draw all the graphics haha but the computer I have doesn't even have a GPU in it..
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Post by Guitar on Jan 30, 2019 12:04:44 GMT -6
I forgot to mention, as a Cubase user, I'd be really interested in the Cubase integration.
I've been spoiled by my Presonus Quantum and I don't really like having to use a separate mixing software.
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 30, 2019 12:28:12 GMT -6
For Live sound the 32 bit extra headroom is great I'd think. I don't see how someone wouldn't be for more bits on the front end of any audio device. It just makes it that much harder to clip. Seems worth it to me. I record in 384kHz a lot. I also think its worth it though and plenty would disagree on that front..but whatever. I really don't see any point to 32 bit Int for live sound. The point of increased bit depth is lower noise floor and at 24 bit you're already well below the point of audibility. I really don't see how lowering the noise floor more would be useful when you're already well below the floor of your amplification equipment. 32 float is a different thing - it has to do with processing errors within the software of your mix/processing platform, not your conversion or your noise floor. With 24 bit you're already at least 40 dB below practical audibility - if that isn't enough to prevent you from getting into digital clipping in your processing you're doing something very, very wrong. 32 bit won't help if you insist on being a cowboy and running your average levels at -3dBfs. That's because the headroom expansion is downward, not upward. If you have problems dealing with that you should stick to using an analog system where headroom expansion is upward, not downward.
I think that 32 bit conversion is just a sales gimmick to get people to buy new converters they don't really need.
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 30, 2019 12:36:10 GMT -6
I don't think I have seen a converter that does floating point (in an audio application at least). To avoid further confusion, I do understand the differences between floating and fixed point and I'm only using the yamaha's interface as an example as it has just been released and made available to the public at a reasonable price point (and I have a feeling that this is only the beginning and we will be seeing more of these '32 bit' converters in the near future). 32 bit converter seems to make sense in certain designs like the yamaha's new interface (internal dsp, cubase) but in general, there seems to no real benefit in recording in 32 bit. floating point is a processing technology, not a convertsion technology. Ain't no such thing as floating point conversion.
At this point I'd much rather spend that money on more channels, not more bits.
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Post by Guitar on Jan 30, 2019 12:41:54 GMT -6
Is it possible that Steinberg have engineered the conversion so that there *is* a headroom advantage?
I don't really see the point in expanding down into the noise floor.
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Post by LesC on Jan 30, 2019 13:10:12 GMT -6
Any idea who this Steinberg interface is made by? My previous Steinberg interface was a rebranded RME. It was really good with driver updates directly from the RME website.
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Post by EmRR on Jan 30, 2019 21:47:39 GMT -6
Doesn't Yamaha own them now?
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Post by sirthought on Jan 30, 2019 23:47:55 GMT -6
Any idea who this Steinberg interface is made by? My previous Steinberg interface was a rebranded RME. It was really good with driver updates directly from the RME website. Really? My understanding was all the Steinberg hardware is made by Yamaha.
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Post by jin167 on Jan 31, 2019 0:22:54 GMT -6
I don't think I have seen a converter that does floating point (in an audio application at least). To avoid further confusion, I do understand the differences between floating and fixed point and I'm only using the yamaha's interface as an example as it has just been released and made available to the public at a reasonable price point (and I have a feeling that this is only the beginning and we will be seeing more of these '32 bit' converters in the near future). 32 bit converter seems to make sense in certain designs like the yamaha's new interface (internal dsp, cubase) but in general, there seems to no real benefit in recording in 32 bit. floating point is a processing technology, not a convertsion technology. Ain't no such thing as floating point conversion.
At this point I'd much rather spend that money on more channels, not more bits.
floating point is not a processing technology and there is a better definition of it. I'm not an expert or have enough experience in dsp or converter design to confirm that there 'Ain't no such thing as floating point conversion'. I googled for floating point ADC and found few papers from early 2000 so I'll have a look at some of them tonight. BTW, I would love to have a look at your work regarding this topic I'm always willing to learn. Let me know if you have a paper that I can have a look into.
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Post by LesC on Jan 31, 2019 1:02:32 GMT -6
Any idea who this Steinberg interface is made by? My previous Steinberg interface was a rebranded RME. It was really good with driver updates directly from the RME website. Really? My understanding was all the Steinberg hardware is made by Yamaha. Yeah, I had a Steinberg Nuendo 9652 PCI card, which was made by RME under the name RME Hammerfall 9652. I used it with a STEINBERG NUENDO 8 I/O, which was also made by RME, under the name Adi-8 Pro. I don't recall Steinberg pretending that they built the hardware themselves, and the drivers were always directly downloaded from the RME website. I purchased it the same time that I bought a STEINBERG MIDEX 8 midi interface. I don't remember who built the MIDEX 8, but it's still going strong. After years of complaints, Steinberg created a 64-bit Windows driver that is still fine with Win 10. But you're probably right that Yamaha is building the AXR4, I keep forgetting that Yamaha bought Steinberg.
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 31, 2019 14:40:02 GMT -6
floating point is a processing technology, not a conversion technology. Ain't no such thing as floating point conversion. (EDIT: Audio conversion that is.)
At this point I'd much rather spend that money on more channels, not more bits.
floating point is not a processing technology and there is a better definition of it. I'm not an expert or have enough experience in dsp or converter design to confirm that there 'Ain't no such thing as floating point conversion'. I googled for floating point ADC and found few papers from early 2000 so I'll have a look at some of them tonight. BTW, I would love to have a look at your work regarding this topic I'm always willing to learn. Let me know if you have a paper that I can have a look into. While I, myself, am neither a coder nor a mathematician I CAN follow a paper and understand what it says. Here is such a paper from the well known company, the oddly named "Analog Devices" which makes various sorts of digital processing chips.
Hopefully you'l be able to understand the subject a bit better after reading it.
Again, floating point is a PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY, not a conversion technology. Analog to digital conversion, by nature produces a fixed point result.
I'm guessing that the papers you saw but didn't read involved conversion between fixed point and floating point within the processing environment and didn't have much of anything to do with analog to digital audio conversion. Back in the late 20th century and up to the early 2000s many CPUs did not actually have floating point built in and relied on exterrnal FPUs (Floating Point Processors). That may be what those papers were about.
Note that the word "conversion" means different things in different contexts.
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Post by jin167 on Jan 31, 2019 21:43:09 GMT -6
floating point is not a processing technology and there is a better definition of it. I'm not an expert or have enough experience in dsp or converter design to confirm that there 'Ain't no such thing as floating point conversion'. I googled for floating point ADC and found few papers from early 2000 so I'll have a look at some of them tonight. BTW, I would love to have a look at your work regarding this topic I'm always willing to learn. Let me know if you have a paper that I can have a look into. While I, myself, am neither a coder nor a mathematician I CAN follow a paper and understand what it says. Here is such a paper from the well known company, the oddly named "Analog Devices" which makes various sorts of digital processing chips.
Hopefully you'l be able to understand the subject a bit better after reading it.
Again, floating point is a PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY, not a conversion technology. Analog to digital conversion, by nature produces a fixed point result.
I'm guessing that the papers you saw but didn't read involved conversion between fixed point and floating point within the processing environment and didn't have much of anything to do with analog to digital audio conversion. Back in the late 20th century and up to the early 2000s many CPUs did not actually have floating point built in and relied on exterrnal FPUs (Floating Point Processors). That may be what those papers were about.
Note that the word "conversion" means different things in different contexts.
the link you gave me has little relevance to the topic that is being discussed here. Besides, as I said I'm aware of the difference between floating and fixed. Floating point has a better definition than a 'PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY'. Say that to any decent engineer or mathematician and see how they react to your remark. I'm not just talking about audio conversion, I'm talking about ADC in a broader sense. The paper below discusses the technical feasibility of floating point ADC. portal.research.lu.se/portal/files/4716761/1472266.pdfDon't think that your own definition of "conversion" applies to everyone.
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Post by svart on Jan 31, 2019 22:17:26 GMT -6
While I, myself, am neither a coder nor a mathematician I CAN follow a paper and understand what it says. Here is such a paper from the well known company, the oddly named "Analog Devices" which makes various sorts of digital processing chips.
Hopefully you'l be able to understand the subject a bit better after reading it.
Again, floating point is a PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY, not a conversion technology. Analog to digital conversion, by nature produces a fixed point result.
I'm guessing that the papers you saw but didn't read involved conversion between fixed point and floating point within the processing environment and didn't have much of anything to do with analog to digital audio conversion. Back in the late 20th century and up to the early 2000s many CPUs did not actually have floating point built in and relied on exterrnal FPUs (Floating Point Processors). That may be what those papers were about.
Note that the word "conversion" means different things in different contexts.
the link you gave me has little relevance to the topic that is being discussed here. Besides, as I said I'm aware of the difference between floating and fixed. Floating point has a better definition than a 'PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY'. Say that to any decent engineer or mathematician and see how they react to your remark. I'm not just talking about audio conversion, I'm talking about ADC in a broader sense. The paper below discusses the technical feasibility of floating point ADC. portal.research.lu.se/portal/files/4716761/1472266.pdfDon't think that your own definition of "conversion" applies to everyone. I'm an engineer and John is right. Floating point in layman's terms is merely a way to handle larger (or smaller depending on how you look at it) decimal values/numbers than a system could handle if they were working with static word length (bit width). If you do a math operation that results in a decimal number, but your system had a fixed bit width, you'd either have to round to an integer, or truncate your value. Either one loses precision or accuracy in the scheme of things. Your could also do more operations to figure out an integer result, but that wastes time and power. Yes, there's been talks of floating point specific converters, but they're nowhere to be found because they're impractical and ultimately unnecessary.
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