Thats silly... 16 bit audio really doesn't have enough dynamic range for many uses now. Listen to a bit of classical music with very loud and very quiet bits and you'll hear quantization hiss in the quiet bits.
16 bits allows a dynamic range of 96dB while sounds you might come across in everyday life can peak over 130dB briefly.
While the actual analog sounds may indeed have a higher signal to noise ratio than 96db, most ADCs haven't, i.e. for most digital recordings 16bit should be more than enough.
Since audio is usually sampled around 44 kHz, which is slow by signal processing standards, most ADCs can exceed 16 bits by supersampling and averaging the results.
You asked about NREC earlier but I failed to set up email alerts correctly (and that post is locked now) so I'm replying here if that's ok.
Hiring process takes around a month or two, depending on how schedules line up. There would be a basic phone/skype screen, then a in-depth technical screen on your areas of expertise, and finally an on-site interview. We try to get back to you on each stage within a week of each stage.
We have a bunch of employees that are on H1-B's right now. Let me know if you have any other questions and sorry for the late reply!
