[sdiy] DACs on-board 12 vs external 16 vs 24 bit

[Richie Burnett]

You'll definitely hear a slight fizzy fuzziness around a sinewave quantized to 12 bits. For the other waveforms their inherent high-frequency energy will largely mask this quantization distortion. So 12 bits might be good enough for saw, tri, sqr etc.

This is provided your waveforms are output at maximum amplitude. If you output them at a lower amplitude, then you're not using all of the voltage levels that a 12-bit DAC provides, and the sound will be more distorted as a result. So, save 24-bit for something like a synth that has to output 32 voices, each made of 4 oscillators all mixed together, with envelopes etc. The extra quantization levels are really useful here!

-Richie, 

Sent from my Sony Ericsson Xperia ray

Justin Owen <juzowen at gmail.com> wrote:

>Hello,
>
>For a digital, micro-based oscillator (being used in a modular environment if that makes a difference) outputting the standard one waveform at a time sine, triangle, saw, pulse waveforms between e.g. 0.1 Hz and 20KHz (probably closer to a max of 10KHz) with the regular features of hard sync, FM, PWM, Unison etc.
>
>...how much difference is the average human going to hear between 12, 16 and 24 bit DACs?
>
>For extra reference - I'm looking specifically at the 12-bit DACs on the STM32F407xx vs. the option of an external DAC of some sort.
>
>Thanks.
>
>J
>
>
>
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