The foundation of digital audio is to represent an analog signal with a set number of amplitude measurements taken each second. The set number for redbook CD is 44,100 measurements per second. Each measurment results in a number that has a range from 0 to 65,536. These numbers are stored in binary format with 16 bit accuracy. Binary is base 2, where only 0 and 1 are used to represent a number. So each number ends up being some combination of 16 0s and 1s. What you end up with is a huge stream of 0s and 1s that represent the original analog signal. I thought you might want to know something this basic for starters.
