Tag: audio file format

Unless until you are an audiophile, all audio file formats may sound same to you. Also, when it comes to audio, your obvious pick is the MP3 file format. But when a range of choices is thrown in front of you such as WAV, AAC, OGG, ALAC, WMA, etc. then you scratch your head. Probably, you are not sure how to choose the best audio format for your need.

FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec and is an audio coding format used for lossless compression of the original raw digital audio file. A non-profit organisation named Xiph.org foundation developed and released FLAC in the year 2001. During late 90’s, a larger sect of music lovers was debating over the need of an unprecedented method of audio file compression to replace the sound deficiency in MP3 file formats.

MP3 stands for MPEG (Moving Pictures Experts Group) Audio Layer III and is the most familiar audio coding format for digital audio files. It is also the third audio format of the MPEG-1 standard which follows ISO and IEC standards. MP3 follows lossy data compression method where the uncompressed audio file size is reduced via perpetual coding or psychoacoustic modelling.

WAV or Waveform Audio Format is one the oldest contender among the uncompressed audio formats. Microsoft and IBM jointly developed and released WAV in 1991. WAV files are encoded in LPCM (Linear Pulse Code Modulation) format where there is no compression and audio data is digitally stored in blocks.