Sometimes. Maybe. :P
My point was more the other direction though - we probably don't need sixty five thousand levels.
It could either use 1 byte instead of 2, and then just have a direct 1:1 mapping of percentage to volume, or - in case there is some obscure software that requires it - make it a 2-byte float so it's no effort for programmers/users to translate, because it's still a percentage, but you've still got that precision if necessary.
EDITED: 2 May 2011 20:24 by BOUGHTONP