Converting a wav file to 20-bit depth

Audacity 3 Help Forum Windows
1

I have a .wav file with a 32-bit depth which I’d like to convert to 20-bit.
I see options for 16, 24 and 32 in the track’s sample format menu, but none for 20-bit.

I’m using v2.0.2, is there a way to do this in Audacity?
If not, suggestions on any other methods/tools are welcome.

Thanks,

2

Try SoX http://sox.sourceforge.net/
Example command:

sox input.wav -b 20 output.wav
3

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried it out and get this warning:

sox WARN formats: wav can’t encode to 20-bit

The resulting file hasn’t changed bit depths. I can convert a file from 16-bit to 24-bit though.
I thought 20-bit format was simply 24-bit with LSBs zero-padded. Is the warning simply because sox doesn’t support it or wav files really can’t be encoded to 20bit?

Appreciate any ideas/suggestions on figuring this out.

Thanks,

4

Are you writing to wave-format-extensible (WAVEX header)?

If you are still stuck, it may be better to write here:
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/sox-users .

What is the purpose of the 20-bit file?


Gale