Audio Glossary
Formats & Resolution.
28 terms
16-bit
A digital audio bit depth offering 65,536 possible amplitude values and a theoretical dynamic range of approximately …
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192 kHz
A sample rate of 192,000 samples per second. Used in archival recording and high-end production workflows. Primarily …
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24-bit
A bit depth providing over 16 million amplitude values and approximately 144 dB of dynamic range. Standard for profes…
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32-bit Float
A floating-point bit depth that offers an effectively unlimited dynamic range within the digital domain. Files record…
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44.1 kHz
A sample rate of 44,100 samples per second. The standard for CD audio and most music streaming platforms. Sufficient …
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48 kHz
A sample rate of 48,000 samples per second. The standard for video, film, broadcast, and post-production audio.
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96 kHz
A sample rate of 96,000 samples per second, double the standard 48 kHz. Used in high-resolution recording and profess…
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AAC (Advanced Audio Codec)
A lossy audio compression codec used by Apple Music, YouTube, Spotify, and most major streaming platforms. At equival…
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AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format)
An uncompressed audio file format developed by Apple. Functionally identical to WAV in audio quality but uses a diffe…
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ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec)
A lossless audio compression codec developed by Apple. Reduces file size by approximately 40–60% without discarding a…
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Aliasing
Distortion that occurs when a digital audio system attempts to represent frequencies above the Nyquist limit (half th…
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Bit Depth
The number of bits used to represent each audio sample in a digital recording. Higher bit depth provides more amplitu…
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Bitrate
The amount of audio data processed or transmitted per second, measured in kilobits per second (kbps). Higher bitrate …
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Codec
Short for "coder-decoder." An algorithm that compresses audio data for storage or transmission and decodes it for pla…
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Dither
Low-level noise intentionally added to a digital audio signal when reducing its bit depth, most commonly when convert…
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Dolby Digital (AC-3)
A perceptual audio coding format supporting up to 5.1 surround sound (six discrete channels), developed by Dolby Labo…
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FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec)
A lossless audio compression format that reduces file size by 40–60% without discarding any audio data. Files decode …
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Interleaved
A stereo audio file format in which left and right channel data is stored in a single file, with samples alternating …
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Intersample Peak
A peak in a digital audio signal that occurs between two consecutive samples and can exceed 0 dBFS during digital-to-…
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Lossless vs Lossy
Two categories of audio compression. Lossless compression reduces file size without discarding any audio data — the d…
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Metadata (Audio)
Data embedded within an audio file that describes the content but is not the audio signal itself — including title, a…
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MP3
A lossy audio compression format that reduces file size by permanently discarding audio information deemed less perce…
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Noise Shaping
A dithering technique that redistributes quantization noise from the most audible frequency range (2–4 kHz, where hum…
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Oversampling
The internal processing of audio at a multiple of the operating sample rate to reduce aliasing distortion introduced …
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PCM (Pulse-Code Modulation)
The standard method for digitally representing analog audio. PCM works by sampling the amplitude of the analog signal…
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Sample Rate
The number of audio samples captured per second in a digital recording, measured in Hz or kHz. Higher sample rates ca…
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True Peak
A measurement standard that accounts for intersample peaks — real peak levels occurring during digital-to-analog conv…
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WAV (Waveform Audio File Format)
An uncompressed audio file format developed by Microsoft and IBM. The standard format for professional audio producti…
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