Is it weird that my dac showed 23/352 instead of 24/352?

[danadam]

Maybe the DAC is analyzing which bits change between subsequent samples and maybe in that particular recording one bit (most likely the least significant one) always stays the same.

 

Check what this shows: 20bit.flac

[danadam]

Actually, the "Innocence" track from "Polarity" album is available on http://www.2l.no/hires/ and indeed sox shows that the least significant bit is not used:

]$ sox 2L-45_stereo_01_FLAC_352k_24b.flac -n stats
             Overall     Left      Right
DC offset  -0.000001 -0.000001 -0.000001
Min level  -0.549987 -0.549987 -0.516935
Max level   0.627561  0.627561  0.520845
Pk lev dB      -4.05     -4.05     -5.67
RMS lev dB    -25.79    -25.60    -26.00
RMS Pk dB     -13.77    -13.77    -15.68
RMS Tr dB     -78.15    -78.15    -77.11
Crest factor       -     11.96     10.39
Flat factor     0.00      0.00      0.00
Pk count           2         2         2
Bit-depth      23/23     23/23     23/23         <--- HERE
Num samples     108M
Length s     307.293
Scale max   1.000000
Window s       0.050

 

You should ask for 1/24 refund 😉