A form of microphone, sometimes also known as a Bug, which picks up sound vibrations mechanically, through the surface it is placed in contact with, rather than through the air. 

Acronym for the Audio Engineering Society (aes.org), a professional body which develops and defines a wide range of Standards in audio engineering and technology, as well as running trade shows and conferences around the world, and publishing a peer-reviewed technical journal.

See Zero Latency Monitoring

A monitoring system that does not introduce delay. When recording into a computer the audio interface inherently introduces some latency (delay) in passing the signal in and out of the computer which may amount to several milliseconds. If trying to audition the output signal while performing, this delay can be disturbing and may even make it impossible to play/sing at all. To circumvent this situation, many interfaces are equipped with a 'zero-latency' or 'latency-free' monitoring function which passes the input signals directly to a local monitoring output, where it can be combined with any required replay signals from the computer.

The act of critical auditioning of an audio signal, either aurally (via loudspeakers or headophones) or visually (via a metering or visual display). In live sound applications the term can also be used in reference to Foldback systems.

Stereo Imaging refers to the accuracy and quality of the spatial positional information being portrayed for individual sound sources within a stereo soundstage reproduced by stereo loudspeakers or headphones. 

If a cable is long relative to the wavelength of the signal it is conveying it is said to behave as a 'transmission line' and the signal is passed as an eletromagnetic wave along the cable. In this condition, the cable itself has a 'characteristic impedance' which can be thought of as the impedance measured at the input if the cable is infinitely long, and it depends on the cable construction — the materials and their geometries — rather than the length. It is necesary to terminate each end of a transmission line with the same impedance as its characteristic impedance. if this is not done the propagating wave will be reflected from the ends of the cable, and the reflected energy can interfere with the source signals.

The characteristic impedance of typical coaxial video and S/PDIF digital cables is 75 Ohms, while AES3 and RJ45 Ethernet cables is around 110 Ohms.