[vorbis-dev] Can compressed music sound better than uncompressed?

[Robert Voigt]

On Wednesday 09 May 2001 22:24, Greg Mayer wrote:
> Consider this:
>
> With digital encoding, we are limited to discrete values for signal
> representation.  So if we increase the number of bits available to us in
> the encoding, then we can get a more accurate representation of the
> original analog signal.  How can we increase the number of bits available? 
> We free up bits that would have been used to store audio signals outside of
> the normal range of hearing or that were masked by other sounds.
>
> You are absolutely right that you cannot increase resolution beyond that of
> the original recording.  But if you have a high quality analog recording,
> then you can more closely represent the analog signal digitally with more
> bits available to you.  Although, in practice, this increase may not be
> perceivable to the listener.

Ok, you mean feeding a high quality 24 bit PCM to a perceptual encoder may 
sound better than 16 bit PCM. I agree, but I think the author of that book 
means comparing 16 bit PCM to compressed music where the input to the encoder 
was also 16 bit. 

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