has anyone had success loading 24bit files in pd? i'm on mac os X, and every time i try they just end up as fuzz.

loud, ear-breaking fuzz

should i just make a noise band?

I've loaded 24bit WAV files on Linux no problem. Loud fuzz indicates to me an endian-ness problem, perhaps there is a way to change the endianness by loading as RAW with the right parameters...