16 to 24 bit MP3s

[BrianW (Brian)]

Also see this very useful post

ACC MP3 lossy output 24bit

Once audio has undergone lossy encoding, it no longer has an inherent bit depth. The encoded bits can be thought of as a mathematical description of how to reconstruct an approximation of the waveform that went into the encoder. The decoder usually calculates the reconstruction using floating point or integer math with at least 24 bits of precision. We chose to output 24-bit PCM in order to avoid introducing unnecessary dither to the decoded audio. Dither is basically a necessity when dropping a…