title: Read *.au file in python
body: <p>I am trying to read an audio file of type <code>.au</code> in python. I would like to have a vector with the amplitudes of the waveform contained in the audio file much in the same way as I can read <code>*.wav</code> files with <code>scipy</code>:</p>
  
  <pre><code>import scipy.io.wavfile as wav
  rate,sig=wav.read('filename')
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>There is a built-in module for opening <code>*.au</code> files, i.e. <code>sunau</code> but I did not manage getting the amplitude vector using it. If I use the function 'sunau.Au_read' I can open a file but I am not able to extract the numbers I want but I can only do something like:</p>
  
  <pre><code>In [44]: f=sunau.Au_read('sound.au')
  In [45]: f.readframes(10)
  Out[45]: '\x0c\x02\x0c\x02,\x02L\x02\x14\x01,\x02,\x02\xec\x01L\x02\x04\x01'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I have no idea what to do with that string... In Matlab there is the function 'auread', is there an equivalent in Python?</p>
  
  <p>Any help is greatly appreciated! :)</p>