All About Digital Audio

With the Internet being a file-sharing medium, it is important that you understand the basics of what digital audio is. It may sound too technical, but you may have encountered a digital audio, and you might be unaware of it.

Understanding Digital Audio

To have a better understanding of what a digital audio is, you need to know first the difference between an analog and a digital audio. An analog audio is made by storing signals of audio or video. Put simply, it records the waves of sound in a different form. 

A digital audio is the reproduction and transmission of sound that is stored in a digital format. Digital audio uses pulse-code manipulation and digital signals to create sound.

Types of Digital Audio Formats

Your CDs, portable music players and MP3s are just some types of digital audio formats that have been compressed to fit in your computer files.

There are generally three types of digital audio formats. The first type is the most common which is the uncompressed or "common system". Often referred to as WAV format, this type of digital audio format is totally uncompressed, and you get to copy or transfer the digital file as is - without any changes or losing any data.

The other type of digital audio format is probably the best known digital audio format which is the lossy compression system, more commonly referred to as MP3. With the lossy compression system, the digital audio file is compressed but loses absolutely none of the data in the file during the process of the compression. This type of digital audio format is more popular since you can transfer a larger file without having to worry about using space on your disc or computer hard drive.

Among Internet users, the most popular digital audio format today is the AAC or Advanced Audio Coding, which uses a newer compression system. This type of format is said to have the same compression level as an MP3 but provides a higher quality of sound. With this combination and the fact that the Internet is a file-sharing medium, this type of digital audio format is becoming preferred by more users.

Types of Digital Audio Players

Aside from having several types of digital audio formats, there are also types of digital audio players that you have to be familiar with. Digital Audio Players or DAP are the systems or devices you use to transfer, save, organize and copy digital audio files.

DAPs are commonly categorized by the kind of storage media you will use to transfer or save the digital audio file. The handiest of them all is something that you may already have which is flash-based player or the flash-drive. This non-mechanical device stores digital audio files through a flash memory or memory cards.

A hard drive based player is the other type of DAP that has a higher capacity to store data files or audio files. These devices read audio files by using a hard disk drive, thus you can store as many as thousands of digital audio files in one drive.

A MP3 CD Player or portable CD player is another digital audio player that is commonly used. You can play digital audio files, like an MP3, stored on CDs.

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