digital-audio.org
Information centre for all about digital audio
Digital-Audio.org is a clear and technical guide to all things relating to digital audio
Welcome to the world of Digital Audio!
All you ever needed to know about digital audio, how it works, why we use it, and what we can do with it! A technical explanation in an easy to read way that will answer questions, and help understand the way we use it.
What's it all about?
You can't go far these days without hearing the word iPOD or MP3. Over the last few years the way we listen to music has been transformed by the ability to store and transport audio digitally. It has changed forever how we buy and listen to music some say for the worse, some say for the better! Whatever you think, the information on this site explains how it all works, from the technicalities of making digital audio to a discussion on which format you need.
For a summary start here
How is it made?
On our Analogue to Digital page we start with the basics of how audio first gets into the digital domain. This is crucial as it affects the quality from then on. The process is explained along with the two most important items, Sampling Rate and Resolution.
For the A to D page click here
Storage
Once we have audio in a digital format it has to be stored somehow. In the early days this was in a real time format that was recorded and replayed only at the live speed. More recently however, a huge number of digital storage formats have grown up that store the sound as a computer file, which can be transported easily from device to device and compressed or expanded to suit the amount of storage space that we have available. This is where MP3 files originate, as well as many others.
For more on storage click here
High Resolution
One of the most exiting aspects of the digital audio evolution is the improvement of what we listen to at home. Up to recently we have had the Compact Disc as a reference of the best we can listen to at home. However, most of the studio recordings these days are made digitally at a better quality than CD. With the advent of high speed broadband at home some record companies are making the higher quality recordings available for download! This is great for audiophiles who have always strived for an improvement over CD.
For more on High Resolution click here
Downloading
If you buy music on-line and download it - its digital! But not all downloads are made equal, and the quality varies enormously from the CDs you might be used to. Has anyone ever said to you 'You should download that at a better bit rate' and you don't have a clue what they are talking about? Well go to our storage page and hopefully it will answer that for you.
For more on storage click here