Don Hills
Addicted to Fun and Learning
It may not mean a lot in playback. But when doing multi-track noise floor adds up fast. But then if we do 16-bit out of 24-bit master that involves dithering ...
OK so far...
... noose floor elevated ...
True, but misleading. Dithering adds noise, but if it's audible in any sane scenario all you've done is demonstrate your incompetence.
... content gets compressed a lot
True, content gets compressed a lot these days. But it's not done by the 24 to 16 conversion. It's done by the heavy hand of the engineer on the knobs of the compressor.