This document provides an overview of audio compression technologies. It discusses what audio is, why compression is needed, and the main types of audio compression: lossy and lossless. It describes some standard codecs for each type including MP3, AAC, FLAC. It explains the MPEG audio encoding and decoding process, and notes that AAC is the successor to MP3. In summary, the document covers audio fundamentals and provides details on common audio compression standards and techniques.