Which Audio Format is best?
Can’t tell your .aiff files from .wma files? Just read on to know why choosing the correct sound file format is important—whether you plan to convert your music to a digital format for a portable player or want to download music from royalty free music websites such as www.premiumbeat.com.
While sound can be stored in many formats, the key differences between these file formats include:
- Their ability to compress sound: This decides how much storage space you will require. While a few uncompressed songs won’t slow your hard disk, a full library could be huge
- Their ability to maintain the sound quality: Lossy or lossless audio formats is a forever debate. The more you compress your audio files, the lower the audio quality. Compression does save you valuable disk space, but for music aficionados this also means loss of audio details.
- Universal or software dependant: While some formats can be played on almost any music software using any music player; some are designed to restrict copying and sharing of the audio. That means they are software dependant, and you cannot listen to them unless you have the software or the player to run that specific file format.
Audio file formats and their unique limitations or benefits become an important consideration when you want to download music from the Internet and use it in your PowerPoint presentations, as background music for your web page, as production music for a video, or simply store it on your iPod for some good listening. Whichever way you intend using your music, here’s a quick guide to some of the common file formats, their strengths and weaknesses.
- MIDI: Short for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, MIDI files are extremely small and are supported by many different softwares and Internet browsers. This flexibility of access allows it to be used in amateur as well as professional music making. File extension .midi However many people do not enjoy listening to the limited amplitude of midi music files.
- RealAudio: This file format was developed to play streaming audio with low bandwidth Internet. Common application includes Internet radio. It is also popular with websites that allow users to listen to on-line music. However, because of low bandwidth, you might experience reduction in audio quality. File extension .rm or .ram
- AIFF: Developed by Apple, AIFF is short for Audio Interchange File Format. These files are not supported by all web browsers or all platforms. File extension .aif or .aiff
- WAV: Developed by IBM and Microsoft, WAV stands for ‘waveform’. This file format does not compress audio. Understandably, WAV files take up a sizeable chunk of the storage space on your disk! However, this lossless format assures you of CD quality audio that can be used for broadcasting, or distributed through DVDs and CDs. An added advantage is that the WAV format is easy to transform and compress into MP3 or other formats if the need arises. And importantly, it runs on any Windows or Mac systems as well as most web browsers. So, if space crunch is not a problem, consider the WAV format to store and distribute music. File extension .wav.
- MP3: Perhaps the most popular sound format for music recording, MP3 files are the sound part of MPEG files. They can compress audio files to about one tenth of their original size while delivering close to CD quality audio. Because of their small file size, MP3 files are quick to download. In fact, they have become the standard when people want music for their multimedia presentations, or are looking for background music in their web pages. However, a major drawback of the MP3 format is that it is not a good format to use for looping. This is because MP3 files contain an unspecified amount of silence at the start and end of the file. To avoid the burp or hiccup this causes, and achieve a usable loop, opt for WAV format. MP3 files are supported by most software systems, and come with the file extension .mp3
- WMA: Short for Windows Media Audio, this format compares in quality to MP3, and is compatible with most players, except the iPod. Another plus is that it can be delivered as a continuous flow of data, which makes it practical for use in Internet radio or on-line music. File extension .wma
If you are still wondering which audio format will best suit your needs, consider the end use of the audio files.
While a WAV file allows you to retain the flexibility to transform and/or compress the music at any level to fit your needs or to use it without compression for a fuller sound; the small size of an MP3 file is your best bet if you want background music for a PowerPoint presentation, or if you are looking to embed audio files in your web page, as these files will download quickly and still retain a high sound quality.
WAV files are a good option if you want royalty free production music for a video. Since you might want to edit the digital audio to fit your shots, this lossless audio format will help you preserve the audio quality. It is also ideal as production music for flash movies. Just use the WAV format and let Flash do the compression. Starting the process with WAV files, allows you to decide the best compression level for your presentation. All you have to do is import the WAV file directly into Flash, and place the sound on a layer. Flash will automatically compress the WAV file into an MP3 format while maintaining the integrity of the loop. The idea is to let Flash handle the MP3 compression instead of doing it before importing the sound into Flash.
And now that you are armed with the basics of audio formats, check out the royalty free music on websites such as www.premiumbeat.com, and start download the music you need!
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26 comments so far
vere$h 
Kittiphop
WMA is better.
Why?
Because of the sound quality. WMA 128 kbps is the same as MP3 192kbps which the MP3 is wasting the space
mani
mp3 is best
Tom
What about ACC as a audio file type? does it not give better results than MPEG as it has more frequencies and is therefore a higher quality sound and also goes above 16khz giving a crisper sound.
Simon
.wav is clearly the way forward if you are an audio freak like myself. Am while I am at it, I have the Shure SE530′s and the Sony NW-A846, which makes my sound unstoppable. I had the Cowon J3 and in my opinion, the sound quality with the SE530′s was dreadful!
Mark A. Nicholson
“WAV: Developed by IBM and Microsoft, WAV stands for ‘waveform’. This file format does not compress audio.” — that is total garbage. WAVE is an audio container format. The actual encoding can be anything, including MP3. Only PCM (LPCM) WAVE files are uncompressed.
ChBa
This is very incomplete.
What about flac (lossless compression), or ogg ??
David
What about Dolby TrueHD? they use the MLP compression and they support 24/192 for 2 channel and 5.1 formats?
DJ
flac is the best music format
700,900kbps etc.
delrayjack
1/21/11: I recently transferred operas from old LP recordings into my computer as .WAV files and then burned some onto onto a DVD disc. When I tried to play the disc on my Panasonic DVD player (it’s a VCR / DVD unit) it tells me that it can’t play that format. I cinverted it to .mp3 and burned a new DVD disc. Same result when I tried to play it. What format will play?
gary
Thanks for the info I will use Wav fromat to copy my pristine Beatles albums (Capital Label 130 grams +/-) onto my Mac.
btw Mark A Nicholson
the WAV. file are not a compressed format (lossless) the author did not mean that the WAV file were not later compress(able) to MP3 or whatever.
You simply read it wrong.
nath
don’t completely understand, though. but from what I’ve read the best format is Wav, right? does Wav compatible with iPod? and I agree that mp3 is a wasting space, even though it’s the most well know format. but I think wma is not bad. what about flac? never heard of it.
Paul Hillary
Article needs expanding to cover other audio formats eg Flac also which formats stuff you about with DRM
Electron
The choice of Audio Files will become more important as digital download media players completely replace DVD & CD players. Also, consider that storage space is enormous these days so lossless files like FLAC may be the future.
Ideal audio file: Lossless, short download time, supported by popular software & hardware products.
Pres
Storage space is always getting cheaper; there’s little need to skimp on audio formats.
FLAC is lossless, perfect audio with the advantage of being an open format. Smaller than AIFF or WAV, but with no quality loss. Disadvantage is that you can’t play it on an iPod.
Apple Lossless (ALAC) is also perfect quality, with the advantage that you can put your audio on your iPod. Disadvantage is compatibility with lots of other players.
But since converting from lossless to lossless is…er, lossless, I personally rip to ALAC for iPod happiness, with the assurance that I can always convert again later!
Rafael
anybody knows a good webpage for me to listen to .wav music, im getting crazy searching for one. I dont wanna download music, I wanna listen it online…
Please, any help! IM TIRED OF MP3 SHITY FORMAT
PEACE
M HASSAN
I WOULD RECOMMEND FLAC IS THE BEST FORMAT FOR AUDIO USERS
nath
thanks for the infos, especially pres 
but since the most common format is mp3, which is lossy can we convert it to lossless format?
because an article says this “Note that you can’t go from lossy back to lossless—those crystalline highs and gut-shaking lows are gone forever.”
Rachit Srivastava
I would hands down recommend FLAC, I have tried MP3, Wav, FLAC, OGG, Apple Lossless….the best overall i found is FLAC in terms of quality and compatibility. I listen music though my ipod touch and my imac and macbook pro which i connect to some really audiophilic speakers. For example, i have audioengine 5 for my pc speakers and aperion intimus for home theatre which are way better than any bose lifestyle, pioneer or logtiech speakers…..here’s what u need to know…for ipod touch, rip ur music from cd at 320 kbps, nothing lower and not at wav cuz ur killing space. I mostly listen to my ipod through headphones in which i can get away with using mp3 @ 320 and a lossless format is not that bad and you can get away with it. But when you compare the mp3 320 with flac on great speakers, you notice the difference….you easily notice the fades, crisp deep bass and little variation + effects with vocals. Mp3′s get exposed when connected to good speakers while flac’s sound RIGHT and NATURAL, not neccessarily fancy or better but RIGHT – which is the most important thing. So flac for speakers on laptops or pc/imac and u can even get a portable harddrive for extra space and atleast 320 kpbs for ipod touch. Most people now days buy music from itunes – which i don’t get – i would rather go to the store and buy the cd – because itunes offers only mp3s while for the same or little higher price you can get the cd. Here are the benefits of cd’s over itunes….u always have a hard copy so don’t have to worry about losing stuff in case of an accident or memory crash, plus you can then rip cds into mp3 320kbps for ipod or at home play the cd directly which is the highest quality. Or you can even rip ur cd into flac format for storage using Roxio Toast Titanium 7 or higher..i have toast titanium 11 and it works fine. CD’s can be easily stored and plus it looks much nicer to have a shelf full of cd’s.
afeeque
supper format is wave
sourav
I don’t know why there is no specification about “AAC” format…………
Being a software developer I easily can say that “AAC” format is much more better than other formats which are discussed sbove.
The dynamic range of “MP3″ format at “192″ kbps is not higher than “AAC” format beside this there is low noise rate.
Incase of “WAV”, dynamic range is highest but there are many extra noises.
So I think “AAC” is the best…………………….
Srinivas
what is the highest audio quality format?
like we have videos like fullhd 1080p
what about audio format?
can any one answer me please. . .
Bocky
Just researching this subject at the moment 25/10/2011 and I’ve been reading ‘Methods of sound data compression – comparison of
different standards’ by Norbert Nowak and Wojciech Zabierowski which they presented to CADSM’2011 (conference?) on 23-25 February, 2011
Check out that for some good info and the tables at the end show the comparisons for lossy and loss-less compression formats
They reckon ‘Musepack’ so to quote the paper :
“The best lossy compression system has turned out to be
little known Musepack, offering exemplary sound quality
at 210kbps bit rate.”
As I say I’m totally impartial to this debate as I don’t really care too much about it , but I’m researching for a college project…
Jerry
I should point out that wav is an uncompressed format, not lossless. As stated in one of the comments, wav is really more of a container in which an audio compressor can be added. The same is true for aiff. Used as uncompressed formats aiff, wav, and au are equal in quality and usability. However (a big caveat here), the quality of any uncompressed format is dependent upon your settings. You can adjust a wav, aiff, or au files sampling rate, bit, depth, and number of channels to settings that are equal, lower, or even higher than cd quality. If you use any of these formats to import audio from a cd and set your parameters to a sampling rate of 44.1 Khz, a bit depth of 16, and stereo your music will be preserved as an exact audio double from your cd. Your files will be large (about 10 MB per minute). You can use a lossless encoder such as Apple Lossless or FLAC to save space on your hard drive. You will get cd quality at about 4 -6 MB per minute. AAC (also called MPEG-4 audio) is a superior lossy encoder that will produce a much smaller file with minimal loss of fidelity (but not exactly cd quality). Very good for iPods and other portable music players. I would shy away from mp3. It is a very old technology (dating back to the late 80′s) and not as efficient as AAC. BTW, mp3 is short for MPEG-1, layer 3.
aleksander
bla bla bla… and more than 95% of people dose not hear diffrences between orginal audio CD and 128kps MP3 file, FACT!
Especially if you are rock,metal..music lover this lossless formats is meaningless. I give it to credit only to real classical music audiphiles or jazz…in that direction. Then formats like FLAC, APE…is worth looking.
Other than that is just as try to put egg on egg…poinless
Alex M
Thank you! I am a musician and I was curious as to which music format I should use and this really helped!
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