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32-bit float in audio has a dynamic range of 1528dB. The loudest possible physical dynamic range is around 210db. So that's quite a bit of headroom. Real hardware audio converters max out around 22 bits of resolution, so for sampling the maximum dynamic range is 110dB to 120dB on super-spec top grade hardware.

Of course for synthesis you can use the entire dynamic range. But you can't listen to it, because the hardware to play the full resolution doesn't exist. (For 32-bit float it's physically unbuildable.)

64-bit floats are still useful in DSP because there a few situations where errors recirculate and accumulate and 32-bit float is significantly worse for that than 64-bits. It doesn't take all that many round trips for the effects to become audible. Worst case is some DSP code can become unstable and blow up just from the numeric errors.

You could go up to 128-bit floats, but the benefits are basically zero.



So 128-bit floats are useful for accurately representing the benefits of 128-bit floats.




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