Digital Observatory

The night skies are littered with stars and are filled with sounds reminiscent of space, if there was sound in space. These digital signals evoke the feeling of being on a space ship. Like a videogame being played with absolute devotion, the sounds are both playful and urgent in their transitions. Digital audio is technology that can be used to record, store, generate, manipulate, and reproduce sound using audio signals encoded in digital form. Following significant advances in digital audio technology during the 1970s, it rapidly replaced analog audio technology in most areas of sound production, sound engineering and telecommunications. A microphone converts sound to an analog electrical signal, then an analog-to-digital converter (ADC)—typically using pulse-code modulation—converts the analog signal into a digital signal. A digital-to-analog converter performs the reverse process, converting a digital signal back into an analog signal, which analog circuits amplify and send to a loudspeaker.