Is Audacity's silence really silent?

Jnzk · Post by **Jnzk** » Thu Apr 15, 2004 12:02 pm

I'm trying to add a little silence to the beginning of a wav file in Audacity 1.2.0. But when I open the exported file in the same program, the line isn't straight anymore. In SoundForge it looks completely flat though. I bet the difference can't be heard, but I'm a perfectionist by nature. Does anyone have an explanation for this?

Jnzk · Post by **Jnzk** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 2:05 am

All right, I found the reason: I had edited with 32-bit float default sample format and exported 16-bit. When I changed the setting to 16-bit and re-exported, the line representing silence was completely straight. Audio CDs are 16-bit as far as I know (whatever that means

), so I'd think that I'm not losing any quality by changing this setting. Or am I?

Tab. · Post by **Tab.** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 2:32 pm

Silence can't be affected by sample precision. All that means is that the wave can occupy any value +- 32768. Higher sampling depth is more precise, but 16 is about the cutoff for the human aural system.