Sound Bytes: If it weren't for audio converters, some of our favorite products would just be spinning their wheels

摘要

Since Harvey Fletcher and WA Munson is 1993 defined the first broadly adopted characterization of human hearing, research has refined our collective understanding of the auditory response (references 1 through 4). The accepted range of useful audible stimulus, however, has not varied significantly and remains essentially 20 Hz to 20kHz and 0 to 125 dB SPL (sound-pressure level, referenced to 20μPa at 1 kHz). Far more changeable have been the myriad ways we use sound to communicate information and entertainment, particularly since the advent of inexpensive digital technologies, such as high-density storage, low-cost communication, and high-speed signal processing. So, though we remain analog creatures in an analog universe, we increasingly depend on digitally encoded audible information and the converters that bridge the two domains.