What a microphone picks up is a wave of continuous analog information. In order to store it on a computer, it has to be converted into a wave of digital information. The better a computer samples the analog info, the more accurate the reproduction of your voice is. And the accuracy is determined by two variables: bit depth (bit rate) and sample rate.

Bit depth (bit rate) refers to the dynamic range in a wave of analog information. A higher bit recording is going to record more information about the sound, therefore much more accurate representation. A higher bit depth also has an “impractical” ability to record quieter sound sources without losing those sounds lost in the noise floor.

For the reason that 16-bit supports a dynamic range of 96dB, roughly the volume of a loud live music concert, while 24-bit supports 144 dB. But we are not likely to hear the full dynamic range of 16-bit, thus the 24-bit is even less practical. Besides, the size of a 16-bit recorded file is almost 50% smaller than a 24-bit file.

Sample rate is the frequency at which snapshots of an analog signal are recorded. Thus, the more snapshots per second, the higher the sample rate and the better the quality. With that being said, there is a limit to a “practical” sample rate. The sample rates that can successfully reproduce a frequency need to be double that of the frequency without audible flaws.

Let me put it this way: a frequency of 20kHz, which is the highest frequency we can hear, needs a sample rate of 40kHz to effectively reproduce that frequency. The extra 4.1kHz serves as a buffer zone; a sample rate of 44.1kHz is the industrial standard in the audio world. We are miles away from needing a sample rate higher than 44.1kHz, because we just cannot hear those frequencies.

Plus, the fact that the higher you set the resolution, the longer the latency will be. Lag that is longer than 0.2 seconds can cause issues when you are trying to monitor the audio.

To be more precise, in the context of analog-to-digital conversion, the higher bit depth could have practical use in some professional cases, but a higher sample rate is not quite possible to work effectively or even make the sound quality worse.

But things may be slightly different when it comes to processing; you really have to run the sample rate needed for the application. Sometimes, it is necessary to be 192kHz, other times it may be 44.1kHz, 48kHz, or 96kHz.

When choosing a microphone, do not be fooled by the marketing specifications. Even if the microphone labeled itself as a 24-bit 192kHz advanced model, most of the time, it just cannot keep up. Thus, no different, you can tell or even worse, the sound quality gets poorer because of mis-sampling.