Digital audio basics

Before you can understand how digital audio works, you need to know a few things about the physics of sound. This animation shows a sound wave emanating through the air from a circular source — imagine that it’s a drum or cymbal.

Spherical pressure waves

As you can see, sound is a wave, like a ripple in a pond. Imagine that your ear is at the bottom center of this image. The air pressure against your inner ear is rhythmically increasing and decreasing. Your brain senses how wide those swings in air pressure are and how often they’re happening, and you experience the result as a sound.

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