Belying the apparent ease with which the acoustic world is perceived, the sheer vastness of the range of sounds and sound parameters that must be encoded represents a challenge to traditional models of neural coding in audition. Here, we review recent evidence suggesting that a process of gain control, operating at multiple stages in the auditory pathway, helps maintain coding accuracy to prevailing sound conditions over a wide range of behavioural and sensory contexts. Together, these processes imbue the system with its staggering representational capacity, underpinning everything from the perception of a tiger's near-silent tread to its triumphant roar, demonstrating once more the principle of efficient coding that underlies sensory processing.