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<!-- #thumb --> <p>I wish I had something clever to say like “how many bits does it take to screw in a light bulb?” *But alas, my simple nerd brain isn’t wired for brilliant jokes. *Sorry. *What I would say is there seems to be a lot of confusion about bits in digital audio and, while we’re not going to end that confusion just yet, perhaps we can put a dent into it.</p>
<p>Let’s focus today on the PCM version of bits and in a few days we’ll try and tackle how 1-bit systems (DSD) works. *For now, let’s look at the counting scheme.</p>
<p>We’ve discussed before that a sample is simply a numeric representation of a voltage level. *When the A/D Converter gets a voltage at its input it attempts to assign a number to represent that voltage. *Let’s say we have only 8 bits to play with (an 8 bit A/D Converter). *If we use binary counting we can count every number from 0 to 256. *How? *Take a look:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.pstracks.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Binary-2.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-11632" alt="Binary 2 Bits upon bits" src="http://www.pstracks.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Binary-2.gif" width="269" height="361" title="Bits upon bits" /></a></p>
<p>This isn’t a great picture but it’s all I could find this morning. *The 1
[Source: http://www.pstracks.com/pauls-posts/bits-bits-2/11630/]
<p>Let’s focus today on the PCM version of bits and in a few days we’ll try and tackle how 1-bit systems (DSD) works. *For now, let’s look at the counting scheme.</p>
<p>We’ve discussed before that a sample is simply a numeric representation of a voltage level. *When the A/D Converter gets a voltage at its input it attempts to assign a number to represent that voltage. *Let’s say we have only 8 bits to play with (an 8 bit A/D Converter). *If we use binary counting we can count every number from 0 to 256. *How? *Take a look:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.pstracks.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Binary-2.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-11632" alt="Binary 2 Bits upon bits" src="http://www.pstracks.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Binary-2.gif" width="269" height="361" title="Bits upon bits" /></a></p>
<p>This isn’t a great picture but it’s all I could find this morning. *The 1
[Source: http://www.pstracks.com/pauls-posts/bits-bits-2/11630/]