Dictionary.net

A sequence of discrete samples takenfrom a continuous sound (audio) waveform. Tens of thousandsof samples are taken each second. Each sample represents theintensity of the sound pressure wave at that instant. Apartfrom the sampling frequency, the other parameter is thedigital encoding of each sample including the number of bitsused. The encoding may be linear, logarithmic or mu-law.Digital audio is typically created by taking 16-bit samplesover a spectrum of 44.1 thousand cycles per second (kHz), thismeans that CD quality sound requires 1.4 million bits of dataper second. Digital telephone systems use lower sample rates.Filename extension: .au (Unix), .snd (MS-DOS, MSWindows).See also Audio IFF, MP3, wav.Usenet newsgroups: alt.binaries.sounds.*.A FAQ on audio file formats is available. Part 1(ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/audio/AudioFormats.part1), Part 2(ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/audio/AudioFormats.part2).