What does Signal Processing mean? May it be an audio or video signal, a reading from a sensor, we typically speak of signal processing from the moment we're trying to process something out of this data. So far so good?

Three categories of signal processing exist: Analog, Discrete and Digital. In our case, we focus on Digital Audio Signal Processing since it allows greater flexibility, stability and better noise performance. We first sample and quantize the analog signal or in other words convert the signal to the digital domain. From there, we use a DSP (Digital Signal Processor) to process the digital signal (0's and 1's). What's a DSP? It is a processor optimized for mathematical operations which are very common in signal processing.

What are the applications and why we need these DSPs?  In the case of audio systems, level control, filtering, equalization, mixing, limiting or compressing are just few examples of signal processing applications. Don't worry about what they should be used for as we'll get back to it in the other FAQ posts.

Alright, so let's summarize! Digital Audio Signal Processing is an efficient way to easily modify the signal with the least impact on the audio quality. Digital Audio Processors save time, headaches and cost of installation with unparalleled flexibility compared to analog crossovers.