audio bit depth


audio bit depth

The size of digital audio samples. Converting voice from analog to digital is typically done with 4-bit and 8-bit samples at 6 or 8 kHz. The standard CD sampling is 16 bits at 44 kHz; however, higher resolution samples jump to 32 bits at 192 kHz (see below).

The larger the sample size, the greater the dynamic range. The larger the sampling rate, the more faithful the replication of the sound. See sampling and DSD.

Uncompressed MEGABYTES per Minuteof Digital Music Samples/Second (kHz)Sample Size 44 48 96 192 16-bit 10.6** 11.5 23.0 46.0 24-bit 17.3 34.6 89.1 32-bit 23.0 46.0 92.2 ** Traditional CD sampling Uncompressed KILOBYTES per Minuteof Digital Voice Samples/Second (kHz)Sample Size 6 8 4-bit 180 240 8-bit 360 480