The Audio Expert, 2nd Edition

Chapter 8

Digital Audio Basics

Analog audio comprises electrical signals that change over time to represent acoustic sounds. These voltages can be manipulated in various ways, then converted back to sound and played through a loudspeaker. Digital audio takes this one step further, using a series of numbers to represent analog voltages. The process of converting an analog voltage to equivalent numbers is called digitization, or sampling, and a device that does this is called an analog to digital converter, or A/D converter. Once the audio voltages are converted to numbers, those numbers can be manipulated in many useful ways and stored in computer memory or on a hard drive. Eventually the numbers must be converted back to a changing analog voltage ...