Benefit of HSO 24bit?

hi everybody,
i have the 16-bit version of HSO together with cubase studio 5 and i am not a pro but still demanding.
maybe it´s a silly question, but what wuld be the major benefit of getting the 24bit version rather than “better overall sound quality”.
can someone please describe that “better soundquality”. does it sound remarkably better, eg, noticably more authenthic, transparent, fuller, “deeper”, strings more crispy, richer …?
are there soundsamples anywhere in the internet to be able to A-B compare both versions?
Thanks for feedback.

A “technical” way to describe the difference is that the higher bit depth, the larger the dynamic range and thus headroom. E.g. a GOOD recording of a complex wave, result in a better representation of the original complexity of the wave.

The bit depth represent a range of “levels” (you can sort of compare to the color bit depth for each pixel in computer graphics) at any given moment in time, and this defines the potential quality of a slice (or sample) of captured audio energy.

When compared to 16-bit vs 24-bit graphics, mostly, people do not notice the difference between the two.

As always, processing more bits means your computer needs to have the capability to crunch more. An increase from a 16-bit stereo wave to 24-bits, result in another 16-bits per sample rate that needs to be processed, so instead of 32 bits being handled, we now need to handle 48 bits per slice. So, increasing to 24-bit audio essentially means adding the load equivalent of one extra 16-bit mono audio for every 16-bit stereo audio in the project.

Also, if your end result is to be 16-bit (e.g. CD) then you probably do not have a need for 24-bit, per se. However, if the price difference between a 24-bit sound set and a 16-bit version is negligable (to you) I would go for 24-bit.

So, does it sound remarkably better? This is a subjective question with biased answers. :slight_smile: Some people maintain that there is an apparent difference, while others say that there is no noticable difference. What do I think? I think that it would be fair to say that a more complex sound will probably have a slight edge on quality, while a more not so complex sound will sound more or less the same.