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FLAC 1.4.0 released – added support for 32-bit audio

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Re: FLAC 1.4.0 released – added support for 32-bit audio

#81

Post by duped »

jrajav wrote: post #49
duped wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A microphone, preamp, and ADC that have > 144dB of dynamic range are extraordinarily rare outside of lab equipment. Physically, you are talking about signals measured in the tens of nano-volts (or nano-amps, depending on the mechanism of the microphone).

The latest Zoom field recorders support 32-bit float recording and achieve a wider dynamic range than that (upwards of 210db) by having a circuit with two different ADCs. Also, it's less about the absolute resolution, and more about the ability to boost the gain, often by a lot, while still having a wide and useful dynamic range after the fact.

Color me skeptical, that's a wider dynamic range than air

Re: FLAC 1.4.0 released – added support for 32-bit audio

#82

Post by jmole »

aidenn0 wrote: post #75
nimish wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used it to record oscilloscope captures. Especially useful since audio cards are cheap high res adc's.

Now that 24b/192kHz cards are widely available, I wonder if you could hook a loopstick antenna up to one and get WWVB (60kHz carrier)? In theory as long as the signal is above -144dB you should be able to tease it out...

SNR even on the best converters is unlikely to be better than 120dB, but still - seems likely.

Re: FLAC 1.4.0 released – added support for 32-bit audio

#83

Post by ksec »

ZoomZoomZoom wrote: post #66

Finally! I can ditch away 32b special casing in my project cleanup and backup automation! As much as I love WavPack[1] (it's great and has 32 bit integer/fp support since forever), Flac is much faster and probably more future-proof. Thanks a lot everyone at XIPH, your work really makes a difference. Edit: oops, I can't. No fp support yet. 1. https://www.wavpack.com/

It is sad that a technically superior and patent free technology often lose out in the popularity contest. Sigh.

Re: FLAC 1.4.0 released – added support for 32-bit audio

#84

Post by ZoomZoomZoom »

Blueskytech wrote: post #77
ZoomZoomZoom wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't find 32 bit PCM music anywhere The real reason is that there's no 32-bit floating point digital audio converters, so distributing the audio in a format which needs to be quantized to be played anyway has no purpose (outside of deceptive marketing, of course). Even integer 32 bit makes no sense for a final format - the available noise floor is just beyond reasonable, 24 bit is more than enough. In practice…

I have a lynx hilo and it does 32 bit input. It’s incredibly nice for recording because if the input hits clipping range you can just lower the volume on the 32 bit recording after the fact and the recording is preserved. Lots of high end DACs have a 32 bit input output option because of this.

Lynx hilo has 121dB input dynamic range and is built upon cs4398 which is a 24-bit DAC chip.

If your input clips, you usually don't need to lower it too much to protect your ADC, and if you recording the sounds so quiet they end up below 24bit noise floor after this, well they probably didn't clip in the first place and you most probably already facing bigger issues with mic/preamp/ambient noise and dynamic range.

Also, you mention hilo can take 32 bit input. Means, the signal is already digitized, and we're talking about recording?

Re: FLAC 1.4.0 released – added support for 32-bit audio

#85

Post by sprash »

foxhill wrote: post #58
thrdbndndn wrote: post #33

I personally can't care less about 32-bit, but unfortunately a few digital music stores I buy from use this format (delivered in WAV). And I don't want to downscale them simply for archival reasons. Now I can at least re-compress them losslessly in FLAC. (previously I have to use Wavpack, which isn't bad but I'd prefer to have a single format in my media library.)

the noise floor at 16 bit is already low. 24 bit, much more common (and imo needless for consumers), is 256x lower than that. there’s no part of the analogue capture process that can utilise such a low noise floor (as far as i’m aware): is there anything of value worth preserving there?

Still, higher bitrates can give you valuable information of the noise spectrum of your recording chain. This can potentially be useful in post processing. It also gets rid of the need for a dithering step before certain effect chains.

Re: FLAC 1.4.0 released – added support for 32-bit audio

#86

Post by baybal2 »

mywittyname wrote: post #53
nimish wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used it to record oscilloscope captures. Especially useful since audio cards are cheap high res adc's.

I'm amazed that consumer-grade audio cards are still available and cheap, to be honest. I can't recall having seen one in years, then again, I haven't had a reason to look for them in years either.

Microchips are cheap, once initial investment is made. I guess, it only costs ~10¢ for new SoundBlasters at 90nm-130nm.

The price of 10 sound cards will be enough to pay for a whole wafer.

Re: FLAC 1.4.0 released – added support for 32-bit audio

#88

Post by dTal »

ksec wrote: post #83
ZoomZoomZoom wrote: post #66

Finally! I can ditch away 32b special casing in my project cleanup and backup automation! As much as I love WavPack[1] (it's great and has 32 bit integer/fp support since forever), Flac is much faster and probably more future-proof. Thanks a lot everyone at XIPH, your work really makes a difference. Edit: oops, I can't. No fp support yet. 1. https://www.wavpack.com/

It is sad that a technically superior and patent free technology often lose out in the popularity contest. Sigh.

What do you mean? Both FLAC and WavPack claim to be patent-free.

Re: FLAC 1.4.0 released – added support for 32-bit audio

#89

Post by pavon »

survirtual wrote: post #87
LeoPanthera wrote: post #24

32-bit integer, not float. I didn't even know 32-bit integer was a thing. Float is far more common. (For audio.)

This does not matter… 32bits is 32bits is 32bits.

You are not going to get good compression reinterpreting a 32-bit float as if the bits were an integer.

Re: FLAC 1.4.0 released – added support for 32-bit audio

#90

Post by [deleted] »

jrajav wrote: post #38
squeaky-clean wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very unlikely your audio interface can actually record at 32 bit resolution. https://www.mojo-audio.com/blog/the-24bit-delusion/ 32bit or more makes sense for dsp and summing, and non-musical data storage. But your I/O is most likely not giving 32 bits

32-bit is common in field recordings, like with a Zoom (and there's reason to believe they can legitimately take advantage of it).

[deleted]
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