Dither is a fundamental technical process in digital audio that consists of the intentional addition of very low-level noise to the signal before reducing its resolution. Although it seems contradictory to add noise to improve quality, this technique is mandatory whenever the bit depth of a file is decreased, such as when converting a 24-bit studio recording to the 16-bit CD format. Without the application of Dither, the digital system would simply truncate the excess mathematical information, causing rounding errors known as quantization distortion. This distortion manifests as a grainy, unnatural harshness, especially audible in song endings and reverb tails (fade-outs). Dither resolves this by randomizing these rounding errors, trading aggressive harmonic distortion for a constant, smooth, and practically imperceptible background hiss, thereby preserving the fidelity and detail of low-level sounds.