Cool Edit Pro: What 32 bit file formats does Cool Edit support?

When saving a 32-bit file as a Windows PCM (*.wav) you can click on the Options button to select which format you want to save the audio data in. The following are the options Cool Edit Pro supports:

• 32-bit 24.0 float (type 1 - 24-bit)
  Full 32-bit floats are actually saved (and in the range of +/-8million), but the .wav BitsPerSample field is set to 24 while BlockAlign is still set to 4 bytes per channel.
• 32-bit 16.8 float (type 1 - 32-bit)
  Cool Edit's internal format (floating point values in the range of +/-32768.0 but larger and smaller values are valid and not clipped since the floating point exponent is saved as well). The .wav BitsPerSample field is set to 32 and BlockAlign to 4 bytes per channel.
• 32-bit 0.24 normalized float (type 3 - 32-bit)
  Standard floating point format for type 3 .wav files. Values are normalized to the range +/-1.0 and although values above and below this range are saved, some programs may clip when reading them back in (Cool Edit will not clip, but read the save value back if it is beyond this range).
• 24-bit packed int (type 1 - 24-bit)
  Straight 24-bit integers are saved (so any data beyond the bounds are clipped). The .wav BitsPerSample field is set to 24 and BlockAlign to 3 bytes per channel.
• 24-bit packed int (type 1 - 20-bit)
  Straight 24-bit integers are saved (so any data beyond the bounds are clipped). The .wav BitsPerSample field is set to 20 and BlockAlign to 3 bytes per channel. The extra 4 bits that are saved are actually the remaining valid bits when saving, and are used when reading (thus giving 24-bit accuracy still if those bits were actually when writing). Applications should either fill those last 4 bits with zeros, or with actual data, but generally A/D converters that generate 20 bits of valid data automatically set the remaining 4 bits to zero.

Any type 1 format with BlockAlign set to 3 bytes per channel is assumed to be packed integers, and a BitsPerSample field between 17 and 24 inclusively will read in all 24 bits fine and assume the remaining bits are either accurate or set to zero.

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