Homework Question.

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Monica1986

Joined Apr 23, 2009
3
Hey,

I need a little help on this folllowing question that I got for homework.

In professional digital music processing, it is standard to use 24 bit PCM coding. Give two reasons why such a wide dynamic range is required during processing, although only 1/256 of that dynamic range is amply sufficient for high quality reproduction.

I could think of quantization error as on of the reasons , but I cant think of the other ? , any help would be great.
 
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It's only 24 bits at full scale, and signals that only use a small part of the dynamic range can get a bit granular due to quantization errors. This can be an issue during digital processing routines, as each scaling-down of a signal results in a lower signal-to-quantization-noise ratio due to fewer bits being needed. These noise errors accumulate, so by starting with as many bits as possible the noise introduced by subsequent processing is reduced.

Plus it's increased resolution, and accuracy, for the DSP algorithms to work with. CD might only be 16 bits, but it's 16 bits of signal that's optimised for a 16-bit playback, and it's compressed to fit. 24-bit studio recordings will be of uncompressed audio sources, and may have a huge dynamic range.
 
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