Term: Channel  

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An audio channel is a path for a single audio signal. A microphone creates one channel of audio and a mixer contains channels that each process a single channel of audio. Stereo music files contain two audio channels, one for the right and one for the left. A speaker plays only one channel of audio, so multichannel systems require multiple speakers or a speaker enclosure with multiple drivers. Containers, like WAV, MXF, and ADM can contain up to hundreds of audio channels inside one file.