"Geoff" wrote in message

Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article
, Mr.T
MrT@home wrote:
16 bits was an obvious choice because it's two bytes
and provides a sufficient degree of overkill. What you
could also say is that not for nothing was the early
use and acceptance of 14 bit CD players, when 16 bit
converters were more difficult/expensive to make.

In fairness, I should point out, though, that the first
generation Philips '14 bit' chipsets for CD players
actually used x4 oversampling. Thus - in principle at
least - returned 16-bit resolution.

Pray tell how oversampling increases resolution ?

http://www.daqchina.net/daqchina/circuit/adpro.pdf

The reason for oversampling was/is to make reconstruction
filters easier to implemnt without artifiacts of a steep
slope.

That's one reason of several.

It's been a whil, have I forgotten ?

yep.