Talk:Audio bit depth

Stair-step graphic is inappropriate
Samples are a points, not lines as shown in the image currently on the page. This is explained in the 2nd xiph.org Digital Show & Tell video. The sample-and-hold "stairstep" graph is a bad approximation seen in many digital audio editing apps. It misrepresents what samples are, the relationship between the samples, the waveform that the samples "resolve" to as the output of a DAC, and the analog waveform that the samples are derived from. It's just wrong! So we need a better image to demonstrate. Please watch the video for ideas. —mjb (talk) 20:12, 13 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Agree that a graph with points would be better than one with horizontal lines falsely depicting digital values that are essentially instantaneous. Digital audio gear is not "sample and hold". Binksternet (talk) 21:41, 13 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Also agree. The first graphic at Quantization (signal processing) is good but the others have the same problem as pointed out by mjb. ~KvnG 13:56, 16 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The linked video from XIPH.org demonstrates the effect of changing word length in digital audio. It's a great demonstration, about 24 minutes long. Word length is not the same concept as audio bit depth, but the point about stair step graphs is widely applicable. Binksternet (talk) 16:53, 16 May 2013 (UTC)


 * What's the difference between audio bit depth and word length? ~KvnG 13:27, 19 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Right! No difference. I was thinking audio bit rate. Binksternet (talk) 18:56, 20 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't know, the stair-step is an acceptable way to think of it as long as you know it's a bunch of points. I'm not aware of any that are actually "correct" on Wikipedia. I think they all want to visually demonstrate the square-like feature and there's not a way to demonstrate quantization without connecting the dots. There's also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pcm.svg which more clearly has 16 different values, a lot better than the 2-bit example which almost appeared to have 5. Radiodef (talk) 03:21, 11 August 2013 (UTC)


 * The desire "to visually demonstrate the square-like feature" is the wrong attitude when the actual sound has no square-like feature. Binksternet (talk) 14:35, 11 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I guess what I mean is connecting the dots at all is wrong but they all do that. For that matter there aren't any dots either, just numbers in a file and the only truly correct way to explain any of it is with the math but this article is relatively nontechnical. I removed the image, I don't want to step on anyone's toes since I agree that it's wrong. I just don't see why it matters so much since it only illustrates the idea at a glance. The article isn't even really about sampling, it's about binary word sizes and the stair-step graphics demonstrate that just fine. Radiodef (talk) 20:09, 11 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Dots are the standard notation for discrete time systems (which PCM is) because in discrete time there is nothing 'between'. Line may be used in places, but they are incorrect and should be fixed if possible.  By the way, nice job fixing some of the problems with this article  18.62.28.10 (talk) 04:31, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

See: File:2-bit resolution analog comparison.png and File:3-bit resolution analog comparison.png. Hyacinth (talk) 20:08, 20 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Well, for all of you critiquing this manner of visualizing sound, you need to offer a better alternative for the person trying to *hear* better through visualization. As a person who teaches audio production, this "stairstep" visualization is very useful for my students and I always tell them about interpolation.  And if you really want to debate with an audio engineer (and not a someone who writes code), I would say ditch ANY visual aid and just listen to the frequencies.  That will make teaching audio production a lot more difficult.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.65.165.76 (talk) 16:07, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

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Word length
My sourced edit was manually removed by with reason given, "lead should summarize body. we generally don't declare in-use terminology as incorrect. Word length has other uses so clarification in this context would be needed." Would it, perhaps, be more appropriate at the end of the first paragraph under Binary representation? Also, it was actually the cited source that declared it "incorrect"; I went with the slightly softer "more accurately referred to as". The phrasing potentially could be further softened, as in, "more precisely", "more descriptively", etc. Quickfix333 (talk) 07:20, 14 January 2020 (UTC)


 * There are many sources that use Audio bit depth without apology. Just because you've found one that does doesn't necessarily mean the article should indicate, especially in the lead, that the terminology is wrong or even disputed.
 * I do think it would help to explain the relationship between Audio bit depth and Word length in the Binary representation section. ~Kvng (talk) 14:38, 14 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I might benefit from such an explanation myself. My understanding is that they mean the same thing, the only difference being that one is used in digital audio, and the other is used everywhere that information is stored in binary words, including digital audio. If there's more to it than that, please enlighten me; I would genuinely appreciate the knowledge.
 * Having cited one source doesn't mean that I found only one source. In recent years, I've come across this assertion frequently. I chose one that seemed clear and reputable, and was easy to find. There does appear to be a dispute. Clearly, more time is needed for that argument to be resolved elsewhere before being reflected here.
 * Currently, the Binary representation section jumps from one to the other with no explanation, which might be confusing to those who aren't already familiar with these terms. Maybe something as simple as adding "also referred to as word length" to the end of the first paragraph under that section would clarify things enough for the time being. Quickfix333 (talk) 07:20, 15 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I generally agree with your description of the relationship between Audio bit depth and Word length. I don't have a strong objection to adding "also referred to as word length" as you've proposed. Wikipedia articles often have shifting terminology. I assume this is due to having multiple contributors over time. Terminology consistency is one important improvement an editor can make to an article like this. In this case, I would favor systemically changing Word length to Audio bit depth because Audio bit depth is the title of the article. ~Kvng (talk) 16:58, 18 January 2020 (UTC)


 * While I agree that consistency is very important, I'd argue that clarity is even more so. When there are multiple commonly used terms all describing the same property, they should all be mentioned, so long as their synonymy is made clear. In this article, I see only one instance of "word length", and its link is a great opportunity for the reader to dig deeper, if they desire, into the technical details of digitizing information and general computer science. I see two instances of "word size" in adjacent sentences under the Audio processing section. I would guess that this is due to "word size" being used in that section's first citation, which also uses "length". That seems like a reasonable number of exceptions to terminology consistency, and I'd favor adding "also referred to as word length or word size" in the aforementioned place just to avoid confusion. The biggest challenge to perfect consistency here is the rarity of perfect consistency elsewhere. Quickfix333 (talk) 21:47, 19 January 2020 (UTC)


 * This stuff is not difficult to fix. The fact that it doesn't get fixed everywhere at once shouldn't be a deterrent to making improvements here. I have added it to my todo list. Feel free to beat me to it; Your thinking looks sound. ~Kvng (talk) 17:00, 22 January 2020 (UTC)


 * ✅ ~Kvng (talk) 16:55, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

SNR figures
has recently twiddled with numbers in the table. The new numbers match the 1.6 + 6.02b approximation given above. I don't know where the old numbers come from. We should probably be as exact as possible and derive numbers from the algebraic formula. ~Kvng (talk) 16:48, 2 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Someone already fixed the first columns. I just fixed the third one (dB steps). I think the old values were computed by dividing by 2^b instead of 2^b-1 (if there are 16 possible values, that’s only 15 steps) and/or using the approximation instead of the log10 formula, but even with that taken into account, some of them were just plain wrong. Sam Hocevar (talk) 19:04, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for fixing this. Sorry for reverting briefly. Consider adding a talk page link to your edit summaries if there is a discussion associated with an edit. ~Kvng (talk) 16:43, 5 March 2024 (UTC)