Digital audio

Overview

The term "digital audio" is used to describe a form of encoded analog audio. There is more than one system for encoding digital audio; but the two most common are linear PCM and one-bit systems such as DSD.

The main purpose for digitizing audio is to facilitate lossless storage, copying, and transmission. Digital signal processing (DSP) can also be employed once the audio is encoded to accomplish manipulation of the audio both in a manner similar to analog processing such as equalization or level control and purely digital audio processing such as sample frequency conversion.