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RE: 20-bit processing

Most 16 bit recordings sound better when dithered. I base this on my experience with many tape transfers to 44/16 format and a few original digital recordings as well, where the final stage in production involves reduction of 44/32 or 44/24 material down to 44/16. There are a variety of dither algorithms in my toolkit and I choose the one that sounds best for each recording.

Analog noise may mask the quantization distortion caused by lack of dither, but analog noise generally has a Gaussian probability distribution and hence is only an approximation to what is needed to eliminate all distortion and noise modulation, a triangular probability distribution precisely calibrated as to its amplitude. Even better would be subtractive dither, but this requires a decoder to subtract out the dither noise during playback and there is no standard non-proprietary way of doing this. (With subtractive dither one gets the benefit of dither with no noise penalty.)

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

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