> that is enough to record the difference between a jackhammer and a mosquito in the same room. That is utterly laughable. Stated like someone who has never ac

> that is enough to record the difference between a jackhammer and a mosquito in the same room. That is utterly laughable. Stated like someone who has never actually tried to record sounds with large dynamic range. But I suppose it's how you define "record". So if a mosquito is 40dBA, and a jackhammer is 130dBA, that's a difference of 90dB. Now I don't know of any preamp that has such a low noise floor, but assuming one existed, if we set the gain staging such that the jackhammer is 0dBFS, then the mosquito is peaking at -90dBFS. Thats 6dB above null, or ONE BIT. So your "recording" of the mosquito is one bit flipping on and off. Quite the recording! Statements like these are what make recording engineers roll their eyes and think here we go again. > 16bit gives you an effective dynamic range of 120dB 16 bit gives you 96dB of dynamic range. And less than that of usable dynamic range. You may say "effectively" as is, once dithered, but then you're accepting that the recording is done at a higher bit depth and then dithered down, thus refuting the original statement that 16 bits is enough dynamic range to record said sounds.