I must be missing something here, but last I checked 32bit float uses about 8bits for metadata —- positive / negative, exponent, etc. — leaving 24bits for signa

I must be missing something here, but last I checked 32bit float uses about 8bits for metadata —- positive / negative, exponent, etc. — leaving 24bits for signal storage. A 32bit uint can just store the bits of raw data and would allow for denser packing of bits. You can then do processing with a 64bit float after converting the int’s bits without loss. Pretty sure every ADC IC I looked at uses integers. During analog processing, using the term “float” is highly disingenuous for an analog waveform, and if an ADC spouts out an int, what float are we talking about here? I maybe have gone too deep in the weeds reading TI chip manuals and writing drivers for some adc chips for my 8 channel, 32bit, 192kHz recording system, and maybe I missed some nuances in what “32bit” means, but last I checked my audio is pretty solid even after converting the 32bit int to 64bit float during my signal processing. Audio engineering has been a massive pain because these people use different terms for basic things (great example is “phantom power” — it’s just a 48v, low-current power supply, but good luck finding a simple answer to that useless term) and there doesn’t seem to be any authoritative references to find answers, so I am sure I am missing something here.