Definition of audio - What it is, Meaning and Concept

Audio is a term that comes from the English language, although its most distant etymological background is in Latin.The concept of audio is used to name the technique that allows to record, transmit and reproduce sounds .

For example: “My son is an audio engineering specialist” , “I was reading several manuals online to learn about audio and improve the recordings we make ”, “ Do you know someone who knows audio? I would like to record some songs with my band ”.

Audio, on the other hand, is called the signal corresponding to the sounds .It can be said that an audio is an analog signal that , at the electrical level, it is equivalent to a sound signal.Its frequency is between 20 and 20,000 Hz, which is the range that a human being can hear.

A microphone allows to convert the sound waves (which are air pressure waves) in a analog electric signal (the audio).To perform the reverse process, use a loudspeaker (or speaker ), which causes the analogue electrical signal to be transformed back into a sound wave.This way, when a singer interprets his songs with a microphone and the sound comes through speakers, the audience listens to the audio.

Like the image, the audio is characterized by the fact that each individual can perceive it in a different way, with particular nuances or associations.This does not mean that while a person hears a fa natural another hear a re sustained , but the same note, the same melody can give rise to different sensations in each one.

Similarly, we do not all have the same talent to recognize sounds, memorize songs and reproduce them accurately.If we add this to what is stated in the previous paragraph, it is easy to understand that the same source Audio (whether a song, a melody or a work composed of many pieces) cannot be described in the same way by a large group of people.

In the case of digital audio , the analog electrical signal that is responsible for the representation of the sound wave is digitally encoded . WAV format , to name one case, presents the digital audio with all the information resulting from the encoding.The MP3 format, on the other hand, compresses the data.

The audio formats and the different technologies used for its transmission cause various complications to the users, since many times they have to face the purchase of adapters and converters to overcome incompatibility problems between their equipment.No matter how much money we have spent on a home theater system: if it does not support a certain format that one of the devices we want to connect requires, then we will have to make a decision that will surely lead us to a new monetary investment.

Audio, finally, is a element composition that alludes to the sound and the act of hearing: audiovisual , audiobook , audio frequency , etc.

The incorporation of audio in the film industry was expected more than three decades, during which there was what we know today as silent film , silent period or the age of the silver screen .In a nutshell, until 1929, most movies only had images , although in some projection rooms there was a pianist who played different melodies as an accompaniment, or even orchestras dedicated to recreating certain sound effects .

Today, audiovisual content represents practically the standard, largely because of the success of the YouTube social network, in which there is no limit to the genre of content : from reviews of news that could perfectly be published in writing to complete series and movies, on this platform the audio and image coexist as if they were interdependent.