What is the difference between 16 and 24 bit sound cards?

Well, pretty self explanitory. I'm going to buy a sound card, and there are 16 and 24 bit sound cards. Is there any real difference. Thanks

What is the difference between 16 and 24 bit sound cards?
ummm, 8 bits. sorry, couldn't resist.





Bit Depth refers to the number of bits you have to capture audio. The easiest way to envision this is as a series of levels, that audio energy can be sliced at any given moment in time. With 16 bit audio, there are 65, 536 possible levels. With every bit of greater resolution, the number of levels double. By the time we get to 24 bit, we actually have 16,777,216 levels. Remember we are talking about a slice of audio frozen in a single moment of time.





Now lets add our friend Time into the picture. That's where we get into the Sample Rate.





The sample rate is the number of times your audio is measured (sampled) per second. So at the red book standard for CDs, the sample rate is 44.1 kHz or 44,100 slices every second. So what is the 96khz sample rate? You guessed it. It's 96,000 slices of audio sampled each second.





In simple terms, the higher the bitrate, the more like the orginal it will sound which will produce richer, more vibrant sound.





Here's an example: Draw a circle on a sheet of paper. Place another sheet on top so that you can see the circle through the first sheet. Now make eight dots anywhere along the circle. Remove the sheet with the dots and then connect them. When you're done, you should have something resembling an octogon. Not really a circle is it? Repeat this several times, each time using more dots. You'll notice the image of the circle is starting to take shape. The more dots, the more like the orginal circle. The higher the bitrate, the more like the orginal sound you'll hear.
Reply:If you are going to use it for domastic use like watching movies or playing games, 16 or 24 wont make any significant difference in your perception of the hearing.





still if you want a better sound and have money...go for 24bit and if possible a sound card which supports 96 Kbps sample rate. So that some DVDs could be played and heard better.

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