An audio file format
is a container format
for storing audio
data on a computer
The general approach towards storing digital audio is to sample the audio voltage which, on playback, would correspond to a certain position of the membrane in a speaker of the individual channels with a certain resolution — the number of bits per sample — in regular intervals (forming the sample rate). This data can then be stored uncompressed, or compressed to reduce the file size.
Types of formats
It is important to distinguish between a file format
and a codec
. A codec performs the encoding and decoding of the raw audio data while the data itself is stored in a file with a specific audio file format. Though most audio file formats support only one audio codec
, a file format may support multiple codecs, as AVI
There are three major groups of audio file formats:
- Uncompressed audio formats, such as WAV, AIFF and AU;
- formats with lossless compression, such as FLAC, Monkey's Audio (filename extension APE), WavPack (filename extension WV), Shorten, Tom's lossless Audio Kompressor (TAK), TTA, ATRAC Advanced Lossless, Apple Lossless and lossless Windows Media Audio (WMA).
- formats with lossy compression, such as MP3, Vorbis, Musepack, ATRAC, lossy Windows Media Audio (WMA) and AAC.
Uncompressed audio format
There is one major uncompressed audio format, PCM
, which is usually stored as a .wav on Windows
or as .aiff on Mac OS
. WAV is a flexible file format designed to store more or less any combination of sampling rates or bitrates. This makes it an adequate file format for storing and archiving an original recording. A lossless compressed format would require more processing for the same time recorded, but would be more efficient in terms of space used. WAV, like any other uncompressed format, encodes all sounds, whether they are complex sounds or absolute silence, with the same number of bits per unit of time.
As an example, a file containing a minute of playing by a symphonic orchestra would be the same size as a minute of absolute silence if they were both stored in WAV. If the files were encoded with a lossless compressed audio format, the first file would be marginally smaller, and the second file taking up almost no space at all. However, to encode the files to a lossless format would take significantly more time than encoding the files to the WAV format. Recently some new lossless formats have been developed (for example TAK
), which aim is to achieve very fast coding with good compression ratio.
The WAV format is based on the RIFF file format, which is similar to the IFF format.
BWF (Broadcast Wave Format) is a standard audio format created by the European Broadcasting Union as a successor to WAV. BWF allows metadata to be stored in the file. See European Broadcasting Union: Specification of the Broadcast Wave Format — A format for audio data files in broadcasting. EBU Technical document 3285, July 1997. This format is the primary recording format used in many professional Audio Workstations used in the Television and Film industry. Stand-alone, file based, multi-track recorders from Sound Devices, Zaxcom, HHB USA, Fostex, and Aaton all use BWF as their preferred file format for recording multi-track audio files with SMPTE Time Code reference. This standardized Timestamp in the Broadcast Wave File allows for easy synchronization with a separate picture element.
Lossless audio formats
Lossless audio formats (such as the most widespread FLAC
, Monkey's Audio
) provide a compression ratio of about 2:1.
Free and open file formats
- wav – standard audio file container format used mainly in Windows PCs. Commonly used for storing uncompressed (PCM), CD-quality sound files, which means that they can be large in size — around 10 MB per minute. Wave files can also contain data encoded with a variety of codecs to reduce the file size (for example the GSM or mp3 codecs). Wav files use a RIFF structure.
- ogg – a free, open source container format supporting a variety of codecs, the most popular of which is the audio codec Vorbis. Vorbis offers compression similar to MP3 but is less popular.
- mpc - Musepack or MPC (formerly known as MPEGplus, MPEG+ or MP+) is an open source lossy audio codec, specifically optimized for transparent compression of stereo audio at bitrates of 160–180 kbit/s. Musepack and Ogg Vorbis are rated as the two best available codecs for high-quality lossy audio compression in many double-blind listening tests. Nevertheless, Musepack is even less popular than Ogg Vorbis and nowadays is used mainly by the audiophiles.
- flac – a lossless compression codec. This format is a lossless compression as like zip but for audio. If you compress a PCM file to flac and then restore it again it will be a perfect copy of the original. (All the other codecs discussed here are lossy which means a small part of the quality is lost). The cost of this losslessness is that the compression ratio is not good. Flac is recommended for archiving PCM files where quality is important (e.g. broadcast or music use).
- aiff – the standard audio file format used by Apple. It is like a wav file for the Mac.
- raw – a raw file can contain audio in any codec but is usually used with PCM audio data. It is rarely used except for technical tests.
- au – the standard audio file format used by Sun, Unix and Java. The audio in au files can be PCM or compressed with the μ-law, a-μlaw or G729 codecs.
- mid - an industry-standard protocol that enables electronic musical instruments, computers, and other equipment to communicate, control, and synchronize with each other
Open file formats
- gsm – designed for telephony use in Europe, gsm is a very practical format for telephone quality voice. It makes a good compromise between file size and quality. Note that wav files can also be encoded with the gsm codec.
- dct – A variable codec format designed for dictation. It has dictation header information and can be encrypted (often required by medical confidentiality laws).
- vox – the vox format most commonly uses the Dialogic ADPCM (Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation) codec. Similar to other ADPCM formats, it compresses to 4-bits. Vox format files are similar to wave files except that the vox files contain no information about the file itself so the codec sample rate and number of channels must first be specified in order to play a vox file.
- aac – the Advanced Audio Coding format is based on the MPEG2 and MPEG4 standards. aac files are usually ADTS or ADIF containers.
- mp4/m4a – MPEG-4 audio most often AAC but sometimes MP2/MP3
- mmf - a Samsung audio format that play a music of ringtone
- mp3 – the MPEG Layer-3 format is the most popular format for downloading and storing music. By eliminating portions of the audio file that are essentially inaudible, mp3 files are compressed to roughly one-tenth the size of an equivalent PCM file while maintaining good audio quality.
- wma – the popular Windows Media Audio format owned by Microsoft. Designed with Digital Rights Management (DRM) abilities for copy protection.
- atrac (.wav) – the older style Sony ATRAC format. It always has a .wav file extension. To open these files simply install the ATRAC3 drivers.
- ra – a Real Audio format designed for streaming audio over the Internet. The .ra format allows files to be stored in a self-contained fashion on a computer, with all of the audio data contained inside the file itself.
- ram – a text file that contains a link to the Internet address where the Real Audio file is stored. The .ram file contains no audio data itself.
- dss – Digital Speech Standard files are an Olympus proprietary format. It is a fairly old and poor codec. Prefer gsm or mp3 where the recorder allows. It allows additional data to be held in the file header.
- msv – a Sony proprietary format for Memory Stick compressed voice files.
- dvf – a Sony proprietary format for compressed voice files; commonly used by Sony dictation recorders.
- mp4 – A proprietary version of AAC in MP4 with Digital Rights Management developed by Apple for use in music downloaded from their iTunes Music Store.
- iklax – An iKlax Media proprietary format, the iKlax format is a multi-track digital audio format allowing various actions on musical data, for instance on mixing and volumes arrangements.
- MXP4 – a Musinaut proprietary format allowing play of different versions (or skins) of the same song.