Delta 44 16 Bit Vs. 24 Revisited - Must Read! - Ron K. Any Input??

ORIGINAL: DonM
One of the things I really was looking for was a tool to review the actual file to see if I could "see" the 8 bits of null values

AnalogX's BitPolice is a realtime plugin that might do what you want. It shows bit truncation. It's free at http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/audio/bpolice.htm

Regards,

Joe Tabby

Dave:
I agree - startling is the case. Here's what started my inquiry a while back. I noticed in ASIO my Delta card had the card driver bit depth unchangable and grayed out at 16 bits. (under Options Audio) If you read the earlier thread - most folks were telling me that even thought I couldn't select 24 bits - changing the project bit depth was controlling the card. I really wasn't sure - And this was further complicated by my resistence to use WDM since until yesterday playback was slightly clicking in the left channel despite any setting changes.

Had I been to see the 8 null bits that would have confirmed my belief. I have at least two CD's that have been improperly dithered because of this.

-D

Joe:
I downloaded the bit police plug-in - I can't get it to work? Any suggestions - both Sonar and SF8 report it is improperly installed - I've never had any other plug-in do that - any suggestions?

Spinloc - You're right I'd like to get to the bottom of this as well - How about this - are there any Delta 44 owners out that that are able to change the cards bit driver depth from 16 to 24 under ASIO???

That seems to be the first chapter of the mystery.

-D

SpinLock:
If 24 bit is the value you can set your Audio Driver Bit Depth (under Options - Audio) then I suspect you are working fine in 24 bit mode. This is the primary mystery - why can't I and some others I've spoken to not get to the 24 bit setting under asio. Clearly if your're system was running like mine you'd be dealing with my dither night mare. I'll bet your fine - the question is how can I get there??? Fortunately I don't need low latency for the type of stuff I do - so WDM is currently acceptable.

Anybody know what I might be doing to get 24 bit under ASIO witht the Delta 44. The cakewalk support folks essentially told me to stick with WDM.

-D

Thomas:

I will do my best to display my humility in this answer. I began to suspect I had 16 bit projects rather than 24 over the past several recordings. I produce mostly baroque period orchestras and sacred choral recordings for the local PRI/NPR affiliate. Some of the recordings end up on CD. I have the privledge of recording some of the finest players, on the most incredible instruments in some of the most incredible acoustic spaces. All that said, I have spent the past thirty years listening to live performances, capturing them and then doing everything possible to recreate the experience. The dynamic range of rennaisance choral works is significantly larger than the average pop recording. This is true because of the soft sections obviously not the louder sections. That being said - I began to hear quantization noise in some of the very delicate things I was working on. For instance I recorded a period performance of J.S. Bach's St. John's Passion in March. The final moments are a bell tolling thirty-three times with a crowd of almost 900 people in the room. It is in these moments where the 24 vs 16 during capture really make a difference - I was looking to figure out why I was not as impressed as I should have been with some of the recordings as I make multiple parallel versions when I am recording live - serveral 24 and 16 bit systems. In the final comparison I was dissapointed in the M-Audio versions until I began to explore why my dual 16 bit systems sounded identical while my Yamaha O1/X running at 24 bit into another workstation had significantly better S/N and dynamic range.

Finally the real kicker is when I was dithering rather than turncating. This would certainly have reduced some of the quantization as fidelity at capture and then dither combined were the two combined elements I was hearing.

Hopefully that sheds some light on the difference and how it appeared in my listening environment.

I will add that I monitor on five individual speaker systems including Acoustat electrostatic panels - All combined I am a fanatic for sonic fidelity. The digital age introduces dozens if not thousands of variables I didn't face with my old analog equipment!

-D

ORIGINAL: DonM

Here's what started my inquiry a while back. I noticed in ASIO my Delta card had the card driver bit depth unchangable and grayed out at 16 bits.

Just so you know,every card Iv'e used with Sonar was greyed out under Asio,and that includes Frontier/ Audiophile/Delta 1010/Echo Darla/Alesis Adat Connect(w/Pro Audio 9) and more.So it's down to this,either just the 44 is stuck at 16 bit or they all are under Asio if the greyed out panel has anything to do with it.Any Cakewalk tech.'s care to explain?

i think im lost in here. iam considerably a newbie so dont bash me up, but whats goin on here ? you say after installing 48 or 51 drivers, and selecting the audio to ASIO in sonar wont enable my delta44 to run at 24bit/96k ?
thats really depressing as i was going to buy a 3gig cpu to record my projects in 24bit and later use the pow-r feature to make quality cds.
if im assuming wrongly, please shed some light into my brain so that i can get to understand whats exactly happening in here.

cant i use 24bit depth to record midi and audio in sonar using ASIO ?

btw i have latest 51 drivers.

AlnDln:
You're right - I'm not sure why some cards or drivers seem to prevent changing the driver bit depth under ASIO in sonar. I can send CW support and Andy a message to seek some reason why - Is anyone else seeing a similar issue with any other card under ASIO?

-D

ORIGINAL: Thomas Campitelli

ORIGINAL: DonM
In the final comparison I was dissapointed in the M-Audio versions until I began to explore why my dual 16 bit systems sounded identical while my Yamaha O1/X running at 24 bit into another workstation had significantly better S/N and dynamic range.

I understand now. You actually could hear the difference between the two. This is always a fascinating subject for me and I am interested to learn about how people perceive sound. In some cases, I am convinced that people believe that something sounds better just because it should. You actually noticed the 16-bit version was lacking in sound quality. One reason I am interested in this is because I am considering making a switch from 16-bit to 24-bit on future recordings and I am weighing the increased file size with improvements in fidelity. Many thanks.

With dynamic music it's a complete no-brainer and I can certainly hear a big difference. Also there is much more headroom so you're much less likely to get those awful digital overs.

The extra workload for the computer for 24bit isn't that much btw nor the extra Hard drive usage.

Kind regards

Dave Rich

spinlock:

It seems there are several variations - stuck at 16 / stuck at 24 / switchable - all ASIO from what I can tell. I left a support question over at m-audio let's see what they say.

-D

Yes, DonM, I'd like to hear the answer to this one myself. I currently use WDM on my desktop, but tried ASIO just to see and I see the bit depth is greyed out at 24. This didn't bother me because 24 was what I wanted, but I'd like to know what this all means, just in case. Also, because I will have to use ASIO on my laptop.
I am about to get a new Delta (more outs needed) and want to be sure it will do what I need it to.

FWIW: Here is the response I got from M-Audio regarding this issue:

"Yes, the ASIO drivers work at 24 bit. Sonar is a little more difficult to set up than other programs. When you set up the driver under Options>Audio>Advanced check the box that says "share driver with other applications". Make sure that only your soundcard is selected under the Drivers tab. Under the General tab make sure that your soundcard is selected for playback and record timing master. After this run the Wave Profiler. Under the Driver Profiles tab make sure that the soundcard is selected and if the full duplex isn't working correctly please try adjusting the 16 bit data stream values.

In Sonar, after enabling the track to record make sure to enable input monitoring for the specified track (input echo on)."

Whatever. It works on my machine and your whole premise that it was 16bits plus 8 nulls was totally unfounded. I think you'd be better off working with M-Audio than Cakewalk tech support.

Dave:

Regarding an unfounded 8 null bits - that was confirmed by M-Audio - they indicated the cards bit depth as reported by Sonar was at 16. My tests between other 16 bit and 24 bit systems capturing the exact same program revealed differences - why do you think M-Audio and my ears are unfounded?

-D