Audio interface

An audio interface is a piece of computer hardware that allows the input and output of audio signals to and from a host computer or recording device.

Outputs are analog line, headphones and digital.

They're typically available as external units, either as desktop devices or in a 19-inch rackmount format.

[2] Standalone audio interfaces grew from the proprietary hard disk recording market of the 1980s and 1990s, but advances in processor power and hard drive speed meant that, by the mid-1990s, standard home computers were capable of recording multi-channel audio at 16-bit, 44khz compact disc standard.

Early systems such as Digidesign's Sound Tools (1989) and Session 8 (1993)[3] and the Ensoniq PARIS (1998) consisted of an external unit that connected to the host computer with a ISA or SCSI card, but from the late 1990s onwards it became practical to use standard computer interfaces such as FireWire, USB, and eventually Thunderbolt instead.