Applying software volume to S16 samples means several bits of
precision are lost; at 25% volume, two bits are lost. Additionally,
dithering adds some noise.
The problem gets worse when you apply the software volume code twice:
for the software mixer volume, and again for the replay gain. This
loses some more precision and adds even more dithering noise, which
can become audible (see
https://github.com/MusicPlayerDaemon/MPD/issues/542).
By converting everything to 24 bit, we need to shift only two bits to
the right instead of ten, losing nearly no precision, and dithering is
not needed. Even if the output device is unable to play S24 directly,
we can convert back to S16 with only one stage of dithering.
Closes https://github.com/MusicPlayerDaemon/MPD/issues/542
Since we switched from autotools to Meson in commit
94592c1406, we don't need to include
`config.h` early to properly enable large file support. Meson passes
the required macros on the compiler command line instead of defining
them in `config.h`.
This means we can include `config.h` at any time, whenever we want to
check its macros, and there are no ordering constraints.
Max Kellermann