The size of digital audio samples. Converting voice from analog to digital is typically done with 4-bit and 8-bit samples at 6 or 8 kHz. The standard CD sampling is 16 bits at 44 kHz; however, higher resolution samples jump to 32 bits at 192 kHz (see below).
The larger the sample size, the greater the dynamic range. The larger the sampling rate, the more faithful the replication of the sound. See
sampling and
DSD.
Uncompressed MEGABYTES per Minute
of Digital Music
Samples/Second (kHz)
Sample Size 44 48 96 192
16-bit 10.6** 11.5 23.0 46.0
24-bit 17.3 34.6 89.1
32-bit 23.0 46.0 92.2
** Traditional CD sampling
Uncompressed KILOBYTES per Minute
of Digital Voice
Samples/Second (kHz)
Sample Size 6 8
4-bit 180 240
8-bit 360 480