Digital Audio

Just like all digital technologies, digital audio is the representation of sound in digits, or ones and zeros. Digital Audio is not necessarily better than analog audio, just different. A digital representation of a sound is always the same, no matter how many times it's copied. Audio CDs, wave (.wav) files on Windows machines, and .au or .aif files on Macintosh are common formats.

The audio CD has been around for 20 years now, but a new format known as MP3 is making a big impact. MP3 files are compressed (smaller) versions of the audio CD files. Other compressed formats that are popular are the Windows Media Audio, Real Audio, and even Quicktime (known more for video) can also be used for audio files.

Resources

Digital Audio Tutorial

Multimedia

Digital Imaging

Digital Audio

- Digital Audio Tutorial