digital audio

Digital audio uses digital signals for sound reproduction. This includes analog-to-digital conversion, digital-to-analog conversion, storage, and transmission.Digital audio has emerged because of its usefulness in the recording, manipulation, mass-production, and distribution of sound. Modern distribution of music across the internet through on-line stores depends on digital recording and digital compression algorithms. Distribution of audio as data files rather than as physical objects has significantly reduced costs of distribution. However, it has brought about a rise in music sharing through peer to peer networks, which is illegal in many countries as copyright infringement. The Recording Industry Association of America and other organizations claim that music sharing severely harms the profitability of their business.
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<multimedia, file format> A sequence of discrete samples taken from a continuous sound (audio) waveform. Tens of thousands of samples are taken each second. Each sample represents the intensity of the sound pressure wave at that instant. Apart from the sampling frequency, the other parameter is the digital encoding of each sample including the number of bits used. The encoding may be linear, logarithmic or mu-law.
Digital audio is typically created by taking 16-bit samples over a spectrum of 44.1 thousand cycles per second (kHz), this means that CD quality sound requires 1.4 million bits of data per second. Digital telephone systems use lower sample rates.
Filename extension: .au (Unix), .snd (MS-DOS, MS Windows).
See also Audio IFF, MP3, wav.
Usenet newsgroups: alt.binaries.sounds.*.
A FAQ on audio file formats is available. Part 1, Part 2.
(1999-07-30)