Have you ever measured this on Denon gear?
I’m asking this because according to RMAA, my Prime 4 only has around 98dB of dynamic range in practice.
The converters don’t play a role here, since it was recorded internally. Levels were calibrated according to the included test file. Eq was neutral and key lock was of course disabled. Here’s the full report: Prime 4.rar (40.7 KB)
To me it is not an issue - I never heard any quantization noise in practice - but it does show that the Prime 4’s recordings are actually very similar to cd quality, even without normalizing. It doesn’t come close to 144dB, the theoretical limit with 24 bit.
However, 16 bit is still well enough in 2025. To those who think the quality of their recordings suffer with lower levels: an average quiet room has around 40dB SPL ambient noise. That means that the highest parts of a recording have to be played on 136dB SPL to make use of the full range of 16 bit. But with those absurd levels we’d be deaf soon enough.
Here’s a great example to what bit reduction actually does to audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYTlN6wjcvQ&t=2766s
Interestingly enough, the audio still sounds very transparent even well under 16 bit. That should put things in context a bit, pun unintended 