Playback sound (often after being mixed) that can be sent to one or more outputs, such as speakers, additional processors, or a recording medium
Conversion between different audio file formats, or between different sound quality levels
Typically these tasks can be performed in a manner that is both non-linear and non-destructive.
For use with speech
Editors designed for use in speech research add the ability to make measurements and perform acoustic analyses such as extracting and displaying a fundamental frequency contour or spectrogram. They typically lack most or all of the effects of interest to musicians.