Try Nika Aldrich's Digital Audio Explained. It manages to avoid much of the math that you will find in engineering electronics text books and makes easy reading for a layman. Armed with Nika's long list of audio "myths" you can help protect yourself against some of the marketing hype of SACD, 24 bits etc. (Nika puts things in proper perspective starting from a scientific explanation of scientist's understanding of our auditory system)
recommended reading
As a relative newcomer to the land of audiophiledom, I'm trying to learn the language and see that much of it seems to require an electrical engineering degree. Short of that, are there any books you can recommend to establish an understanding of the basics? Most of the magazines, ezines, blogs etc seem to assume a basic foundation. THanks. JK