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From: lutton@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: Re: Floating Point CD's
Message-ID: <1756@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 28-Oct-84 01:37:23 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.1756
Posted: Sun Oct 28 01:37:23 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 29-Oct-84 02:39:55 EST
Lines: 12
Nf-ID: #R:inmet:2600114:inmet:2600115:000:581
Nf-From: inmet!lutton    Oct 25 22:18:00 1984

<>
There were some experiments with floating-point representation of
digitized sound back in the 70's.  The results indicated that you
gained something with the exponent bits but lost something by having
only 12 or fewer mantissa bits; net result was that 16 bit floating
point and 16 bit fixed point sounded just about the same.  Fixed
point is easier to work with, so floating point was forgotten about.

     HOWEVER:  the test signals were computer-generated, i.e. known
beforehand not to exceed a certain fixed level.

   Perhaps it's time for a fresh look at floating-point.