24Bit Soundcard Or Not????

Following on from my 24Bit sound card question I think I may have cocked up slightly

I bought the 24Bit Live! for a song and so didn't think to look into it to much (I mean 24Bit is 24Bit right? Wrong) - however on looking at this link:

http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=206&product=10315&nav=2

It seems that for some reason no mention is made of output in 24Bit in stereo mode, however if you look at all the other Audigy cards, even the bottom of the range:

http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=204&product=10653&nav=2

Specific mention is made of 24Bit stereo output. Am I being paranoid or are my MP3s in stereo mode somehow bypassing the 24Bit DAC and ending up in just 16Bit?? Anyone got any ideas on this, if not it's gonna be an EMU soundcard that I know outputs in 24Bit

 

mp3s are always 16bit. Any output on any sound card will only work in 24bit when the file is 24bit.
There are certain progs which can interpolate 16bit mp3s to 24 but I have no experience with them and it seems a pretty pointless excercise really. I think winamp will do it if you wanted to try though.

EDIT: Sorry I think I misunderstood what you were saying, but what I said still applies, mp3s are 16bit so I wouldn't expect them to output at 24bit. I should think it all passes through the same DAC but as for what bit depth it is at I don't know. Have a look on the creative site, its possible it interpolates up to 24bit but very unlikely, it probably switches to 16bit (I'd be annoyed if I bought a card which automatically interpolated upto 24 every time). I'm not sure you'd notice anyway tbh, mp3s don't have the resolution and in a sense 'the damage has been done' when you save as mp3 so adding redundant data probably won't do alot.

 

Cheers Anex, that was actually a question at the back of mind but you pre-empted me

I did wonder/think if MP3s were in fact 16Bit (makes sense given that's what CD is), so basically given that it sounds pretty sweet I needn't worry. It's already taken me several weeks to transfer most of my CD collection onto the PC (so I have no will to do it all again in another format), and the Creative is considerably better than the on board sound, so all is well :MILD: