Bit-Depth Audio and Harmonic Distortions

Changing of bit-depth 32-bit float or 24-bit integer samples to 16-bit integer cause some harmonic distrortions.

Pure source signal (44 kHz, 32-bit float or 24-bit integer, sine wave 4410 or 4430 Hz):

This signal saved to 16-bit integer format:

Sine wave 4410 Hz hasn't noise, but it have 3-th harmonic with significant level (-114 dB).

Sine wave 4430 Hz has noise with level better -133 dB.

This is result of convertion 32-bit float to 16-bit integer of sine waves 4000 and 4030 Hz with sample rate 192 kHz:

Here we see input (without conversion or other processing) signal with frequency 4010 Hz in 16-bit / 44100 Hz:

Appear 3-rd harmonic with level -118 dB.

Here we see input signal with frequency 4030 Hz in 16-bit / 44100 Hz:

No separate harmonics. Appear noise like to white noise.

Resume:

For 32-bit float to 16-bit integer conversion:

1) If frequency of sine wave is multiple of sampling rate, harmonic distortion appear as pure sine waves with noise same noise of HD formats (very low).

2) Otherwise non-linear distortions uniform allocate (same white noise) all frequencies with low level.

Read about audio issues

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7. Audio as Optics >
8. What is optimization audio for DAC >
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10. Power Conditioner for Audio. It's real advantage? >

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