Not necessarily audio related...
Just a general question regarding ADC specs. For example a 16bit ADC should have dynamic range and SINAD of 96dB. Being realistic in practice not all bits are really used, often we lose at least 1bit, so a spec'd 16bit ADC is really 15bits, so we are down to 90dB.
But there are so many ADCs spec'd at a given bit resolution but their SINAD and dynamic range is much lower than 20log(2^bit). In the headers they can state 'true 16bit' but just a few lines down in the text it will say SINAD of 80dB, which is only 14bit.
What's the general expectations we can have regarding spec'd bit resolution and actual resolution?
Just a general question regarding ADC specs. For example a 16bit ADC should have dynamic range and SINAD of 96dB. Being realistic in practice not all bits are really used, often we lose at least 1bit, so a spec'd 16bit ADC is really 15bits, so we are down to 90dB.
But there are so many ADCs spec'd at a given bit resolution but their SINAD and dynamic range is much lower than 20log(2^bit). In the headers they can state 'true 16bit' but just a few lines down in the text it will say SINAD of 80dB, which is only 14bit.
What's the general expectations we can have regarding spec'd bit resolution and actual resolution?