Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler hertz, bits, and bitrates - demistifying the devil

can anyone here point me to a link, or explain in plain english, what each of these really means in audio terms?

I know hertz is the sampling rate. 96kHz means every second there are 96,000 samples of the sine wave. but what about bits?

and bitrate? I know in computer terms bitrate is the # of bits streamed per second, but what is its relationship in audio and its relationship with bits and hertz?

I also know 24 bit will give you better sound than 16 bit, but why exactly? what exactly is 24bit? is it that each sample, all 96,000 of them are stored in 24 bit rather than 16, giving it even more definition?

if so, is bitrate an equation of hertz and bits?

thanks for all your replies!