16-bit is (IIRC) 96 dB of dynamic range, going from well below human perceptual noise level to above damage threshold.
24-bit is good for headroom when recording/mixing but useless for listening.
If there's any difference between a 16-bit and a 24-bit version it's either because they're actually not the same (different mixing/mastering) or they're just poorly mixed/mastered from the start and don't use the full 16-bit (or 24-bit for that matter) dynamic range.
Not going to question your subjective experience, but I do not think most people will hear any difference between 16 and 24 bit playbacks under normal conditions, even with fancy headphones.
"120dB is greater than the difference between a mosquito somewhere in the same room and a jackhammer a foot away.... or the difference between a deserted 'soundproof' room and a sound loud enough to cause hearing damage in seconds.
16 bits is enough to store all we can hear, and will be enough forever." [1]
Read enough glowing product reviews from "audiophiles" on nonsense like $100 electrical sockets and $75 Ethernet cables and you'll start to question everything.
That's a great article; thank s.
" It's true that 16 bit linear PCM audio does not quite cover the entire theoretical dynamic range of the human ear in ideal conditions. Also, there are (and always will be) reasons to use more than 16 bits in recording and production.
None of that is relevant to playback; here 24 bit audio is as useless as 192kHz sampling. The good news is that at least 24 bit depth doesn't harm fidelity. It just doesn't help, and also wastes space. "
The extra dynamic range helps bypass bad mastering.
I'm not an audio engineer by any means, but I'm not sure that sentence makes sense. Mastering is what produces the final audio output - if you take a badly compressed master it's not going to matter if you export it to 16 or 24 bit.
Nor can anyone hear the difference between a 16bit and a 24bit file, all else being equal.
While we don't know the exact dynamic range of human hearing, we do know it to be above 96dB.
Either way, using these 96dB in 16bit requires careful mastering.
With CDs, it is not possible to e.g. make a song quieter than the others in the CD without losing this 96dB range. There's no "ReplayGain" metadata in the discs; the format is aged and not fancy at all.
At 24bit, there is plenty, thus preserving what was in the original recording is possible even with bad mastering.
Lets say the mastering process compresses the recording extremely to a 42dB (8bit) range - outputting that to either 16 or 24 bit will make zero difference. The audio will still have a dynamic range of 42dB.
If we're talking unmastered recordings for archival, yes 24bit is very useful. For final mastered copies released for listening it's completely untrue that 16bit doesn't offer enough dynamic range.
However, seeing as in audio bit depth only affects dynamic range, you'd have to be listening to something with an extreme dynamic range to hear it. I can see why higher bit depth is useful in recording, but not in playback.
Audio quality is famous for having an extremely strong placebo effect. Unless you did the test double blinded, your anecdote has a good chance of being wrong.