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Has anyone here noticed a difference in playback quality between different programs? I recently did a test of opening the same audio file in peak 1.62 and Logic 4.7.3 and comparing what it sounded like. There was a subtle but inmistakable improvement in the Logic playback over Peak's playback. Invdividual sounds were sharper, clearer, more distinct from each other. Can anyone explain why this is, or help me figure it out? I have always assumed that digital sound is digital sound, and if I'm using the same hardware, the software used for simple things like playback shouldn't make a difference.

I've noticed a similar difference between Logic and Reason. Logic just seems to sound better than Reason (it could just be that it's louder, though). Is there any grounds to this? Is it possible that using certain software will degrade the quality of the audio files I'm working with in the same way that, say, using cheap cables with hardware would?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also, any recommendations of books and/or web sites would be great.

thanks

[nleonard]

Logic uses 32 bit processing on the audio files once they are on your hard drive. This is even more noticable when you add effects or edit the waveforms in the editor. Other programs may only have 16 bit. Even Logic has a checkbox that allows for 20/24 bit internal processing.