If (Mr. Golden Ears) Danny cannot hear the difference, I'll not worry my pea brain/ears over it.

bapu
If (Mr. Golden Ears) Danny cannot hear the difference, I'll not worry my pea brain/ears over it.

LOL you're too good to me Ed. :) I've gotten bashed in other places about it. Stuff like "huh, you don't upsample to 32/96 and above?! You must not be a very good mastering guy."
 
I just respond..."no, I suck....but I'm booked with jobs up to November of 2017....but what do I know?"

"Don't confuse the file format with audio bit depth."
Now THERE's a piece of information I didn't have before.  Danny, you nailed the intent of my question!  Using Dan's answer I did some surfing, now that I know what to look for.  Let's see if I got this:  the CALCULATIONS done on that 24 bit pre-frozen track are done to a 32 bit accuracy to allow for the effects the plug ins will have on the original wav file.  The resulting "24 bit" frozen track is therefore more accurate and lopping off the last 8 bits from the calculations would make no difference?
 
BrFrBob

BrFrBob
"Don't confuse the file format with audio bit depth."
Now THERE's a piece of information I didn't have before.  Danny, you nailed the intent of my question!  Using Dan's answer I did some surfing, now that I know what to look for.  Let's see if I got this:  the CALCULATIONS done on that 24 bit pre-frozen track are done to a 32 bit accuracy to allow for the effects the plug ins will have on the original wav file.  The resulting "24 bit" frozen track is therefore more accurate and lopping off the last 8 bits from the calculations would make no difference?
 
BrFrBob

Well, you aren't really lopping anything off. If your project is 24bit, and you export at 24bit, nothing has been changed and dither is not needed. The file format is 32bit, but the audio is 24bit. While rendering the frozen track, the full 32bits were used, but it is 24bit when it hits the hard disk. 
 
Regards,
Dan

Thanks.  I think I understand it enough to stop obsessing about it.  One less thing taking up space in my head.