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HOME THEATER'S AV GLOSSARY

W

• Watt: A unit of power or energy. One horsepower is equal to 745.7 watts.
• Word Length: The sampling rate determines how often an analog wave is sampled; the word length determines the resolution of the sample. The larger the word length, the more accurate the sample as a whole. A 16-bit word length (CD) allows 65,536 different level or volume steps that can be chosen for each sample.
• WMA: Windows Media Audio. An audio compression format similar to MP3, but with digital rights management (copy protection and usage restrictions) built-in by Microsoft.
• Woofer: A speaker driver designed to reproduce low frequencies.
• Wow-and-Flutter: A measurement of speed instability in analog equipment usually applied to cassette transports and turntables. Wow is slow-speed variations, and flutter is fast-speed variations. Lower percentages are better.