Please don't focus on bits, when the [loudness wars][1] are the primary enemy of quality sound _reproduction_ in most (not all) music recordings today.
This is about radio.
As you sit in your car, tune your radio to your local Top 40 station. You'll notice that, even when you turn down the dial to the lowest audible setting, you perceive a constant drone of music/noise (depending on how you feel about pop music). Now, tune to the local classical station. Little spurts of noise can be heard, punctuated by... quiet spots. The average consumer thinks: "What's wrong with this music?! I have to turn up and turn down my volume all the time!" Connoisseurs of classical music, however, encourage dealing with this high dynamic range, because [dynamics][2] are a critical part of classical music.
Here's the sad part: POP MUSIC DOESN'T NEED TO HAVE ITS DYNAMIC RANGE SMASHED! Radio stations can easily take high dynamic range source material and run it through a [compressor][3] to limit the dynamic range, thus making their music more car compatible (solving the classical music 'problem'). However, consumers expect to hear the same when they download an AAC/MP3 and play it outside their car. "What's wrong with this old recording, it's so quiet", is a common complaint. Of course, when iTunes (and competing software) have features like automatic output leveling ([Sound Check][4]), compressing dynamic range at OUTPUT and not at MASTERING should be the choice producers make.
Yet, the industry persists, making the music louder at the expense of eliminating its dynamic range. They're painting soundscape with a more limited palette (though, doing a surprisingly effective job, given the limitations).
As a former sound engineer, I agree with everything here. Just one correction 'sound check' doesn't add compression to a song but rather adjust (down) the volume of songs that are perceived to be louder. This is referred to as "normalization". Note: it does not adjust (up) the songs that are perceived quieter if they have peaks that are 100%... because they would clip. To get them louder would require a process of limiting and compression.
There is a reason for more bits, but only at the production stage.
Programmers all know about numeric precision, rounding errors and truncation; in post-processing, a whole chain of plugins hands off the signal, does work on it, hands it off again, sums it with the other tracks, etc. It follows that even with the 16/44 pulldown, precision during processing is going to affect the cleanliness of the final mix. The majority of that burden rests on the DAW and the plugin authors(most of whom have gone to 32/64-bit floating point today), plus any external hardware(which is typically analog or 24-bit fixed digital), but it helps to start with a high-precision original recording.
Still, it's mostly a matter for audiophiles, and it has little bearing on the consumer market.
This is about radio.
As you sit in your car, tune your radio to your local Top 40 station. You'll notice that, even when you turn down the dial to the lowest audible setting, you perceive a constant drone of music/noise (depending on how you feel about pop music). Now, tune to the local classical station. Little spurts of noise can be heard, punctuated by... quiet spots. The average consumer thinks: "What's wrong with this music?! I have to turn up and turn down my volume all the time!" Connoisseurs of classical music, however, encourage dealing with this high dynamic range, because [dynamics][2] are a critical part of classical music.
Here's the sad part: POP MUSIC DOESN'T NEED TO HAVE ITS DYNAMIC RANGE SMASHED! Radio stations can easily take high dynamic range source material and run it through a [compressor][3] to limit the dynamic range, thus making their music more car compatible (solving the classical music 'problem'). However, consumers expect to hear the same when they download an AAC/MP3 and play it outside their car. "What's wrong with this old recording, it's so quiet", is a common complaint. Of course, when iTunes (and competing software) have features like automatic output leveling ([Sound Check][4]), compressing dynamic range at OUTPUT and not at MASTERING should be the choice producers make.
Yet, the industry persists, making the music louder at the expense of eliminating its dynamic range. They're painting soundscape with a more limited palette (though, doing a surprisingly effective job, given the limitations).
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamics_(music) [3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression [4]: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2425