The weakest links in the chain with floating-point like this are the pre-amps+ADC at the front and the DAC+PA+Speakers at the back, and the article glosses over that a bit.. Both of those still need attention to getting the levels sensible and getting the signal into its initial digital format (invariably, I think, non-floating). A quick look at Cirrus and Burr Brown ADCs shows none better that 127dB SNR. Even achieving that with a mic pre-amp as well is a real challenge (e.g., Focusrite show ~110dB dynamic range on their 18i20). It's possible to do better if money is no object.

So whether integer, fixed point, or floating point, one definitely still needs to set the front-end gain/level sensibly.


Once into the digital domain and converted to floating point, one can thenceforth essentially ignore signal levels and gain, right up to the point where she signal goes back to non-floating-point, or to analogue at the amplifiers/speakers.

The significant-digits part of 32bit floating-point is 24-bits, so exactly the same resolution/precision as 24-bit integer data, but it adds also an 8-bit exponent (10^+/-127), which is huge for audio purposes.

If one changes the level many times, by arbitrary amounts, the signal will eventually degrade, due to rounding errors in the calculations, but in practice it's by such a small amount that it's likely irrelevant. I'm not confident of the maths here, but I suspect that would be around 32,000 manipulations to degrade the signal to the equivalent of 16-bit CD quality. I can live with that smile

Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful.
AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11
BIAB2025 Audiophile, a bunch of other software.
Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts
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