Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncr-sd!hp-sdd!hplabs!ucbvax!ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU!edward
From: edward@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Edward Wang)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: 16-bit Digital Sound: FP or int?
Message-ID: <26814@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 15 Nov 88 10:18:18 GMT
References: <44@softart.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: edward@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Edward Wang)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 10

In article <44@softart.UUCP> riml@softart.UUCP (Research in Motion Limited) writes:
>The reason I ask these questions is simple.  I have been convinced that
>the "CD" digital encoding uses floating point.  Why?  If it didn't, low
>level signals would be hopelessly distorted due to the lack of information
>content in a LINEAR encoding at low levels.  
> [blah, blah, blah]

CD's use 16-bit fixed point.

Low-level signals are distorted, but they are low level, as in hard to hear.