Audacity Forum

If I'm recording in Audacity, then exporting to MP3 or WAV, are there any advantages to setting the sample format to 32 bit float, when both WAV and MP3 are 16 bit formats? I've had the default sample format set to 16 bit PCM for a while now, because 32 bit float seems to use more CPU, and I don't have much CPU to work with.

If you are only doing simple edits such as cut/paste/trim/delete then there is no advantage to 32 bit.
If you are using effects that "process" the audio (including Amplify, Normalize, Fade In/Out, Equalizer, ...) then 32 bit processing is more accurate than 16 bit (hence marginally better quality).