Soundcards that can't play 48kHz - 24bit files?

Long story short:

I had a long talk with a colleague of mine, who is also a sound engineer, who told me that a lot of sound cards can't play 48kHz - 24bit audio files?

This sounds completely weird to me and my first thought was that this guy hadn’t upgraded his sound card since the good old Sound Blaster Live 16bit days. Normally, I'd brush it off and ignore a statement like that but for some reason I started questioning my own knowledge about this.

Am I completely out of the onboard sound card loop or is he talking nonsense?

i can't name a single one that can't play at the 48/24 level. even my oldes spare card the m-audio's fast track pro with usb 1.1 goes up to 96/24.

Yeah, close thread please.

Never heard of such a thing.

Unless he's using 80s gear.

Thanks, that's ALL I needed to hear :)

Sometimes people can be so stubborn and persistent that you get in doubt about the most basic things.

Thanks, guys!

  On 1/4/2016 at 8:58 PM, xox said:

i can't name a single one that can't play at the 48/24 level. even my oldes spare card the m-audio's fast track pro with usb 1.1 goes up to 96/24.

  On 1/4/2016 at 9:18 PM, Gocab said:

Never heard of such a thing.

 

Unless he's using 80s gear.

My yamaha audiogram 3 can only do 16-bit/44.1Khz (I thought I've been able to change it or gets auto set to 48Khz before though).

it works good though, would be interested in having something that would enable me to listen to 24 bit to see if it would really make a huge difference (im guessing more higher and lower frequencies etc. would be more present?). Would be open to suggestions for something similar to audiogram 3 (it is small and simple).

  On 1/5/2016 at 4:10 PM, unteleportedman said:

 

  On 1/4/2016 at 8:58 PM, xox said:

i can't name a single one that can't play at the 48/24 level. even my oldes spare card the m-audio's fast track pro with usb 1.1 goes up to 96/24.

  On 1/4/2016 at 9:18 PM, Gocab said:

Never heard of such a thing.

 

Unless he's using 80s gear.

 

 

My yamaha audiogram 3 can only do 16-bit/44.1Khz (I thought I've been able to change it or gets auto set to 48Khz before though).

 

it works good though, would be interested in having something that would enable me to listen to 24 bit to see if it would really make a huge difference (im guessing more higher and lower frequencies etc. would be more present?). Would be open to suggestions for something similar to audiogram 3 (it is small and simple).

 

Man, that's weird. So you're not able to play 48kHz - 24 bit files?

If you go back maybe 6 years it was still pretty common for latptops' on board audio hardware to only handle 16 bit audio, actually, but 24/96 is pretty standard these days.

Maybe he's confused with the playback software? I've had countless problems getting Windows Media Player to play some 24 bit files.

  On 1/5/2016 at 4:34 PM, Squee said:

 

  On 1/5/2016 at 4:10 PM, unteleportedman said:

 

  On 1/4/2016 at 8:58 PM, xox said:

i can't name a single one that can't play at the 48/24 level. even my oldes spare card the m-audio's fast track pro with usb 1.1 goes up to 96/24.

  On 1/4/2016 at 9:18 PM, Gocab said:

Never heard of such a thing.

 

Unless he's using 80s gear.

 

 

My yamaha audiogram 3 can only do 16-bit/44.1Khz (I thought I've been able to change it or gets auto set to 48Khz before though).

 

it works good though, would be interested in having something that would enable me to listen to 24 bit to see if it would really make a huge difference (im guessing more higher and lower frequencies etc. would be more present?). Would be open to suggestions for something similar to audiogram 3 (it is small and simple).

 

 

Man, that's weird. So you're not able to play 48kHz - 24 bit files?

 

Nope, only at 16 bit. Not sure what happens when you try playing anything 24 bit on it, I assume it just gets compressed down to 16 bit but I am not an expert on this.

See the specifications tab on this page: http://uk.yamaha.com/en/products/music-production/interfaces/audiogram_series/audiogram3/?mode=model

On the laptop I use to go online (a modest ASUS from about 4 years ago), the onboard sound hardware can't actually change its bitrate automaticaly, you have to manually choose the bitrate and then it converts other rates on the fly. It works fine if you set it to 24 bit, but it defaults to 16 bit and its 24 - 16 bit conversion sounds TERRIBLE, so if you just keep it set to the default like almost everyone would, 24 bit audio sounds worse than 16 bit.

  On 1/5/2016 at 4:10 PM, unteleportedman said:

would be interested in having something that would enable me to listen to 24 bit to see if it would really make a huge difference (im guessing more higher and lower frequencies etc. would be more present?).

 

there's no audible difference, it's mostly for mixing quality/headroom purposes if this post is correct:

http://www.head-fi.org/t/415361/24bit-vs-16bit-the-myth-exploded

..and I assume it is, since not only have I never been able to tell the difference between 16 and 24 bit audio, but nobody is even able to show me a proper analysis when I request one.. but that's an argument for another thread :D