Method of encoding analog audio signals into digital bits of information typically using pulse code modulation resulting in high-quality signals that suffer from very little distortion and noise compared to analog signals, are easy to record and edit without degradation, are easy to transmit and record, and can be modified or adjusted quickly and without signal degradation. The most common form of digital audio is the compact disc (CD). Digital audiotapes (DAT) and Minidisc (MD) are also available audio formats. Digital audio can be compressed to save space as in digital 5.1 surround sound systems. It is easy to manipulate with digital signal processing. he quality of digital audio is largely dependent on its sample rate and quantisation. The higher the sample rate, the more images are taken of the pure signal. Digitizing an analog waveform involves breaking it up into many, many small pieces that can later be lined up together to form a close approximation of the original, continuous signal. The more samples that are taken, the more pieces are used to recreate the signal resulting in a higher resolution signal. he samples are represented by a certain number of bits of data. The bits make up a stack of blocks representing the height of a sample. The sample height is given as the closest block of information. Thus a sample’s actual height could be 3.28 units but it might be recorded as the nearest block at 3.3 units. The greater the quantisation in bits (quantisation being this process of breaking up the sample’s height) the greater accuracy is used to determine the height of a sample. Ds currently use a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz (44,100 samples per second) and a quantisation of 16 bits (allowing 65,536 blocks). Higher-quality digital audio uses a 96 kHz sampling frequency and 24-bit quantisation (96,000 samples per second with each sample having 16,777,216 blocks). igital audio signals are decoded by a digital-to-analog converter. High bit-rate, high sampling-rate digital signals are capable of producing better sound quality than any analog audio format (although some people feel analog phonograph records produce purer sound than current compact discs, higher resolution digital audio signals provide the additional resolution to be a superior sound reproduction technology regardless of who is listening).