Investigation

摘要

Digital systems like Compact Disc work by converting the audio waveforms into series of binary numbers. The results are then stored on an audio CD as a sequence of 16-bit integer values. This means there are only 2~(16) = 65,536 possible values to choose from for any individual sample. Normally, OdBFS (Full Scale) is defined as what we get from using the largest values. We then generally assume that we can record levels right up to this limit, but cannot go above it as there would be no way to represent these 'out of range' levels. The system seems to have a 'brick wall' limit in terms of loudness.