It just says 32 bit audio on Amazon

[nbusters]

I'm doing a ham radio project and I'm considering using this sound card. Is this actually capable of 32 bit? ADC/DAC? More detailed specs would be appreciated. Thanks!

[nettings]

Real 32 bit correspond to 192 dB dynamic range, give or take. There are no single-stage converters that can do that (there are not even real 24 bit ones, the bottom few bits will always be noise). And if they did, great, you could encode anything from hearing threshold to where the negative half-wave hits _hard vacuum_ in air (Btw, that means the air starts distorting like crazy!)

What people usually mean by 32bit is 32 bit float, which has a mantissa of 23 bits plus sign, giving you an actual resolution of 24 bits. The only plus is that you can shift that to a louder reference level with the exponent and not have digital distortion. I guess the conversion is trivial and cheap on most hardware.

[nettings]

That said, if the Stereo card is anything like the Octo, expect 16 bits dynamic range on a good day. My octo has considerably less than 96 dB.

[flatmax]

These cards have 24 bit ADCs and DACs.

As pointed out on this thread :
http://forum.audioinjector.net/viewtopi ... 3090#p5207

The performance of the Octo is heavily dependent on the breakout you are using. When direct header connections are made, the noise you are talking about has completely disappeared - 130 dB down at 130 dB dynamic range for that frequency, not -96 dB. That is the equivalent of 22 bits of data, with 2 bits in the noise - not bad actually!

Matt

[nbusters]

Thanks, that was very helpful!

Btw, is the 96kHz per channel or is it split between the two?

[flatmax]

All channels are 96 kHz when set to that sample rate. They all run off the same clock!

Matt