A method of processing audio data, the method comprising: receiving audio data comprising a plurality of audio objects, the audio objects including audio signals and associated audio object metadata; determining an importance metric for each of the audio objects, the importance metric being based, at least in part, on an energy metric; determining a global importance metric for all of the audio objects, the global importance metric being based, at least in part, on a total energy value calculated by summing the energy metric of each of the audio objects; determining an estimated quantization bit depth and a quantization error for each of the audio objects; characterized by calculating a total noise metric for all of the audio objects, the total noise metric being based, at least in part, on a total quantization error corresponding with the estimated quantization bit depth; calculating a total signal-to-noise ratio corresponding with the total noise metric and the total energy value; and determining a final quantization bit depth for each of the audio objects by determining whether the total signal-to-noise ratio is less than or equal to a signal-to-noise ratio threshold; and if it is determined that the total signal-to-noise ratio exceeds the signal-to-noise ratio threshold, performing the following steps iteratively until it is determined that the total signal-to-noise ratio is less than or equal to the signal-to-noise ratio threshold: identifying an audio object corresponding with a greatest quantization error; increasing a bit depth for quantizing the audio object corresponding with the greatest quantization error; recalculating the total noise metric; and recalculating the total signal-to-noise ratio, the method further comprising quantizing the audio signals corresponding to each of the audio objects according to the final quantization bit depths. receiving audio data comprising a plurality of audio objects, the audio objects including audio signals and associated audio object metadata; determining an importance metric for each of the audio objects, the importance metric being based, at least in part, on an energy metric; determining a global importance metric for all of the audio objects, the global importance metric being based, at least in part, on a total energy value calculated by summing the energy metric of each of the audio objects; determining an estimated quantization bit depth and a quantization error for each of the audio objects; characterized by calculating a total noise metric for all of the audio objects, the total noise metric being based, at least in part, on a total quantization error corresponding with the estimated quantization bit depth; calculating a total signal-to-noise ratio corresponding with the total noise metric and the total energy value; and determining a final quantization bit depth for each of the audio objects by determining whether the total signal-to-noise ratio is less than or equal to a signal-to-noise ratio threshold; and if it is determined that the total signal-to-noise ratio exceeds the signal-to-noise ratio threshold, performing the following steps iteratively until it is determined that the total signal-to-noise ratio is less than or equal to the signal-to-noise ratio threshold: identifying an audio object corresponding with a greatest quantization error; increasing a bit depth for quantizing the audio object corresponding with the greatest quantization error; recalculating the total noise metric; and recalculating the total signal-to-noise ratio, identifying an audio object corresponding with a greatest quantization error; increasing a bit depth for quantizing the audio object corresponding with the greatest quantization error; recalculating the total noise metric; and recalculating the total signal-to-noise ratio, the method further comprising quantizing the audio signals corresponding to each of the audio objects according to the final quantization bit depths. <EOS>