: It's not about that at all... it is about capturing sound.
: http://www.alesis.com/support/faqs/adat_20_bit.html
That's quite a write-up on 20-bit recording, but the bottom line is that the human ear is incredibly sensitive to distortion. Many people can hear the difference between analog and digital sources and that's why vinyl recordings are still popular with audiophiles. I myself am finally getting rid of the last of my vinyl LP's - a rather expensive proposition by itself - because I finally have a CD player that does a decent job of replicating analog sound. This is all a matter of signal processing and minimizing the distortion that results from quantization of the original recording. And it also plays the limited number of 20-bit CD's that are available.
There are actually 3 digital formats that have been developed to deal with the inadequacies of 30-year-old CD technology. HDCD adds 20-bit info and is fully backwards compatible with the CD (most players, however, only use the first 16 bits). DVD-audio uses the DVD format to record 24 bit audio plus additional channels, delivering 5.1 surround sound effects when played with the appropriate equipment. These can be played in conventional DVD players but, of course, you really need a good player to take advantage of additional bits. SACD uses pulse-width modulation to record what is essentially an analog signal in a digital medium. I am told that SACD is the most natural sounding format of the 3, but it requires a dedicated player and available content is quite limited.
Dolby 5.1 surround sound is quite a gimmic. It kind of overwhelms the senses and can provide a feeling of immersion that makes you forget that something is missing. It's a simulation - a kind of invention of what it would sound like to be in a larger than life environment. When watching a movie or playing a video game where the focus is on the action, this is probably OK, but for listening to music it is much more of a distraction. With my system I can hear each voice and each instrument with pinpoint accuracy - it's as if the band or orchestra is right in front of me and the speakers aren't there. This kind of sound doesn't come cheap, but it's not all that expensive if you know what you're doing. A lot of surround sound systems cost a lot more than my stereo equipment, and deliver a lot less in terms of sound quality.
But since most of us don't have computers that could faithfully deal with precision audio anyway, however, I guess this is pretty irrelavent
