Dithering analog summing and hardware inserts

To be clear though, we can put 20 different plugins per channel, bus things around up the wazoo, add automation, etc. without having to worry about messing with any dither as long as we're still in the daw, right?

It's only at the point that we're exiting the daw to go the da converters that we need to put on a dither plugin for every single output going to a separate converter channel, whether that be just two tracks for your mix bus, 16 channels for otb summing or outputs beings used for hardware inserts, right?

And those dither plugins should be the absolute last thing in the chain for each output which is exiting the daw to go to a da converter channel, right?

If all of this is correct, what am I still missing? Or is that it?

And is there such a thing as too much dither? Does it hurt to err on the side of caution and add it in places where you're not sure if you need it, even if it turns out that you didn't need it?

So there's no such thing as too much dither? If that's the case, I'll just apply it whenever in doubt and stop worrying about it.

Now for deciding on which dither plugin to use and what particular settings to use on it, I'm still not quite there. I've used dither in the past but probably in an incorrect manner and with whatever dither options my daw provided.

Right. So to be clear, there is no such thing as too much dither? There isn't a downside to applying it to a track which actually didn't need it due to no truncation occurring?

I'm asking because, if that's the case, I'll just set 16 busses up (with a dither plugin on each) for each of my da channels on my converters (I'm summing otb) and send everything there from now on. I could just create a template with those busses already setup and just start each project with that already set up.

Granted, it's likely that all 16 of those busses will have truncation going on anyway, but there could be a time where one doesn't. I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't a downside to applying dither when it wasn't needed. It would be nice to just apply it as a matter of course and not worry about if it is or isn't needed.

Oh, and what about bouncing down or printing tracks within the daw? Does dither need to be added when doing that or does it literally ONLY need to be applied when you are exiting the daw to go to your converters? I'm inclined to believe that dither IS needed when bouncing down but I figured I would get some verification on that.

Oh, and it looks like Goodhertz dither isn't in vst. But I can leave the "which dither plugin" discussion for another time.

Because it's now preserving a lot more of the low level detail and information?

You mean I wasn't imagining things???  

It can't. It's just masking the more obvious quantization noise with noise that's less obvious to the human ear, which allows the details to stand out better.

How exactly does the Apogee connect to the DAW's output? That's the point of potential truncation. A "32 bit DAC" is meaningless hype.

My Symphony Mk1 attaches to Pro Tools 12.8.1 on Sierra 10.12.6 via Thunderbolt out of a late 2013 Mac Pro to their own Thunderbridge interface. From there the connection is the Avid-spec HD cable to the Symphony itself.

The only time I know of when there's too much dither is when you're late for an appointment!

The chip accepts i2s which as far as I know is not floating point but can be 32 fixed point. The built in sample rate converter and digital volume control are advertised as being  32 bit.

I didn't think you were imagining things, I just wasn't quite ready for how much of a difference it made.

How many different dither plugs did you try before settling on pro L? My only option for 24 bit dither with the plugs I have was ozone 6, so that's what I used.

I also turned off all noise shaping.