Is bit depth about dynamic range or data?

[davide256]

bit depth does determine dynamic range. The CD 44.1khz sampling rate/16 bit dynamic range format was driven by commercial digital technology  practicalities of the 80s... it works most of the time but fails on complex music and music where there is significant content at dynamic range extremes. The later DVD format of 48/24 addressed the corner cases but I find that the early DVD recordings were focused on multichannel and had poor stereo versions. Higher sampling rates like 96khz and 192 khz seem to help in taming DAC digital artifacts.

 

The combination of sampling rate x bit depth = bit density, a bigger number is nice but when you get to media like DSD file sizes can be huge. I've gravitated towards 96/24 as the sweet spot for least DAC issues and reasonable file sizes. Many CD's from the 80's that  I originally detested are very enjoyable now with modern DAC's and streaming technology... wasn't the CD format, it was errors introduced by DAC and transport solution.

 

Tape and reel can have much greater "bit density" because of an essentially infinite sample rate but the analog recording capture technologies have  dynamic range challenges with loud music. The early Telarc digital LP's showcased how digital capture could better do dynamic range

for loud passages.