quality:correction, structural:scholar_edition, structural:summarization, linguistic:translation, structural:reformatting
Fixed point

For n -bit integers with equal distance between quantization levels (uniform quantization) the dynamic range (DR) is also determined.

Assuming a uniform distribution of input signal values, the quantization noise is a uniformly distributed random signal with a peak-to-peak amplitude of one quantization level, making the amplitude ratio 2 /1. The formula is then:

This relationship is the origin of statements like " 16-bit audio has a dynamic range of 96 dB". Each extra quantization bit increases the dynamic range by roughly 6 dB.

Assuming a full-scale sine wave signal (that is, the quantizer is designed such that it has the same minimum and maximum values as the input signal), the quantization noise approximates a sawtooth wave with peak-to-peak amplitude of one quantization level and uniform distribution. In this case, the SNR is approximately