Analog signal

An analog signal is any continuous-time signal representing some other quantity, i.e., analogous to another quantity. For example, in an analog audio signal, the instantaneous signal voltage varies continuously with the pressure of the sound waves.

In contrast, a digital signal represents the original time-varying quantity as a sampled sequence of quantized values. Digital sampling imposes some bandwidth and dynamic range constraints on the representation and adds quantization error.

The term analog signal usually refers to electrical signals; however, mechanical, pneumatic, hydraulic, and other systems may also convey or be considered analog signals.