Why is there a requirement for HD audio (24 bit resolution and higher sampling rates?). I have been reviewing Katz, B (2002) "Mastering Audio - The Art and the Science" recently which discusses this very issue. Katz questions why there is a race to create the hottest sounding album with very minimal dynamic range? The added benefit of increasing the number of bits from 16 to 24 is an increase in the "theoretical" dynamic range by 48dB. With this additional headroom, why do we still squash eveything down into almost square waves during the mastering process? With the advent of DVD-Audio for example, will mastering engineers still try to squeeze the dynamic range into almost non-existence?
It is interesting to note Katz's argument stating that a 16 bit recording effectively sits within the range -144dB to -48dB (96dB dynamic range) thus meaning that even if the peak sample only hit -48dBFS (under "full scale") in a 24bit system, the same effective recording could be carried out. I always aim to hit as near to 0dBFS during the recording process as possible (regardless of resolution used), however, from now I on I plan to start leaving more headroom available when recording at higher resolutions.
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