What is the difference between digital audio and analog?

Answer 1

Digital is here. Digital is now. It's not the wave of the future; it's already here and it's here to stay. The main thing with digital unlike analog is that you either have a signal or you don't, which means you either have great sound or no sound at all. An analog signal quality can be a very wide spectrum; all the way from pristine to degraded to the point of being unlistenable. One example of this is if you have ever heard a copy of a copy of a copy of a cassette. Each time the cassette is copied the signal is compromised. With digital, the 20th copy of the original file will be as good as the first. Another aspect of digital versus analog is surround sound. An analog signal is two channel. A Pro Logic decoder can make that signal into five, but it is actually still just two channels sliced and diced to SOUND like five channels. Digital, on the other hand, can actually BE five discrete, separate channels for an excellent theater experience.

Answer 2

Digital audio works by braking down the original analog signal into several discrete numbers, with a computerized process reversing the operation (digital to analog converter) to restor sounds in the end.

The advantage of digital is that it is usually immune to distortion. If I send you the number two, it does not matter how loud or disgtorted it is, if you understand it to be a 2, trhen a 2 it is, and you sound will be restored perfectly. Special techniques add addtional numbers so that a missing number can be deducted from the ones that make it through, restoring the sound.

The limitation fo digital is that the sampling rate has to be higher than the higest frequency you want to record, if you say you record stuff from 0 to 100, and the music would have to use 105, you will get distortion as it will forced down to 100 (this is a very crude and rough example).

Analog is supposed to record the actual signal, but is always prone to distortion, and every defect makes it. Vinyl records are analogic: the sound is imprinted as actual wavy patterns (there is a guy who was famous for being able to look at a vinyl record and, from the shape of the groove, could figure out what the music sounded like, and then identify the music). CD's are digital: all there is on those are pits and bumps encoding zeroes and ones.

Answer 3

It is a common misconception that digital transmission is superior to analog. As usual, the answer is "it depends". Analog signals degrade gradually, while digital signal are fine until the noise level can cause a misreading of the encoded number values; then digital falls apart completely. For example, if the noise level is enough to change just one bit in a 16-bit number, the effect it can have can vary from very small (the least significat digit, one part in 10,00) to huge (the most significant digit, a two-to-one change) depending on just when that noise occurs. The real reason digital transmission is superior to analog is that digital can incorporate error-correcting codes. With these codes (which entail sending additional information along with the signal of interest), even if several bits are in error in a code number, the code will restore the correct ones.

Answer 4

pretty much digital audio provides a digital signal. and an anaolgue provides a differnt type
(im not sure the name). they say digital is better quality than analog. A little hint for you and anyone else trying to buy these types of cables: Every type of digital signal is the same so wether you buy a $100 digital audio cable or a $15 digital audio cable you get the same quality. that is what i use and it is great but the analog they say gets better as the price goes up

Answer 5

The big difference is in the number of connections from one device to another , keeping the signal as pure as can be.
There is no sound difference as a matter of fact you don't really hear digital audio, what comes out of your speakers is analog.

Answer 6

Put simply, digital will give you much better sound, unless you're looking at spending mega dollars. You get less distortion with digital, and a much cleaner sound. It's the way to go.