How is more than 16 bits better for CD?


A response to Roadcykler's question made me wonder about a related topic... If the data on standard CD's is encoded as 16bit, how can an 18, 20 or 24 bit DAC improve things? That is, if the waveform of 16 bit audio is made up using 65,536 levels, where do these extra bits come in? Does the DAC 'guess' the extra bits?
carl109

Showing 1 response by bigbucks5

As interesting as the first response to your post is, sampling frequency and number of bits are unrelated. Adding bits doesn't have anything to do with Nyquist and filtering approaches.

Word length is increased by adding noise to the signal (aka, dithering). Interpolatuion (guessing) would only apply if you increased the sampling rate such that you had to 'fill in' the missing samples. In the case of more bits and a higher sampling rate, you would combine both interpolation and dithering.