Scorewegian 🎶 on Nostr: npub1a38m3…0xhva i know all of that but "32-bit" turns out to be a bit of a ...
npub1a38m395hf44qtlgdd7e7gzzzl00c8h3e3t78fszmnp0j3qyfpttst0xhva (npub1a38…xhva) i know all of that but
"32-bit" turns out to be a bit of a misnomer for what they're actually doing.
what the electronics engineers who have investigated the claim think they're doing is using two converters and preamps set at different levels.
a bit like the safety track that some field recorders offer. it's recorded some -12 or -18 dB quieter than the main track, in case it clips.
because it's how it's always been done in the past, recording engineers tend to record at levels pretty close to 0 dBFS, even though it may not be necessary.
if the converter does what it says on the box and the preamp isn't adding any self-noise, no gain setting would really be necessary, because as you correctly point out, and i discovered during my research of this, no microphone on the market today even has a dynamic range of 144 dB.
barely any piece of equipment has that kind of dynamic range.
in practice, i suspect most preamps and converters fall far short of this, and what they're probably doing for these "32-bit" interfaces is combining the main track and the safety track into a single track.
"32-bit" turns out to be a bit of a misnomer for what they're actually doing.
what the electronics engineers who have investigated the claim think they're doing is using two converters and preamps set at different levels.
a bit like the safety track that some field recorders offer. it's recorded some -12 or -18 dB quieter than the main track, in case it clips.
because it's how it's always been done in the past, recording engineers tend to record at levels pretty close to 0 dBFS, even though it may not be necessary.
if the converter does what it says on the box and the preamp isn't adding any self-noise, no gain setting would really be necessary, because as you correctly point out, and i discovered during my research of this, no microphone on the market today even has a dynamic range of 144 dB.
barely any piece of equipment has that kind of dynamic range.
in practice, i suspect most preamps and converters fall far short of this, and what they're probably doing for these "32-bit" interfaces is combining the main track and the safety track into a single track.