CDPlayerJEW

How a CD Player Works

A CD player reads a dicrete set of data off a CD. In short, a CD player takes this data and sends it through a digitla to analog converter, then through a low pass filter, and finally is output through speakers. A simple diagram illustrates this below.

When an audio CD is recorded, the music has an infinite amount of data points and can be represented as a continuous function of time $x(t)$. Because a medium, such as a CD, has a finite amount of space, it will not be able to hold $x(t)$ since it has an infinite number of points. Instead, the music is sampled at intervals to create a discrete function of time $x(nT)$ where $n$ is an integer and $T$ is the period.

- Principle author of this page: Jeffrey Wonoprabowo - Image Player Diagram by Aric Goe or Todd Caswell (not sure which since both of them had it on their pages)