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To: limtex who wrote (2785)	4/13/1998 6:00:00 PM
From: Jim Greif	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 60323

Limtex, I believe the early CDs were 16-bit. There are actually some 24-bit CDs on the market. The sound is infinitely better today than it was when CDs were first introduced. Anyone have any idea what spurred today's price jump? Jim

To: limtex who wrote (2785)	4/13/1998 11:17:00 PM
From: Sowbug	Respond to of 60323

A song on a CD is made up of numbers. Roughly speaking, 16-bit means the volume at a single moment of the song can range from -32768 to 32767, where 0 is silence, -32768 is your stereo speaker membrane flapping to the maximum extent in one direction, and 32767 in the other direction. More bits refers to the recording and mastering process. If you have more bits, you have a higher sound resolution -- crisper sounds, better high-frequency sounds, less hiss during quiet passages. 20-bit is 16 times better; 24-bit is 256 times better (uses more storage space, though). Note: the end CD is 16-bit format. Nothing you can do about that (though some players do fancy tricks to interpolate the samples to simulate higher resolutions, just like how scanners can make 600 dpi scans with 300 dpi hardware). But the higher-resolution recording and mastering loses less sound during the process.