Here are some of the more common ones, what differentiates them, and what to use them for.
After that, we’ll tackle compressed formats.
That is, an analog waveform is approximated in regular intervals.
PCM is characterized by two properties: sample rate and bit depth.
In terms of audio formats, this is pretty much the foundation.
True sound, in the real world, is continuous.
In the digital world, it’s not.
It’s changing based on certain criteria at pre-defined intervals.
Let’s say that the water flowing from an open faucet is your “analog” audio source.
Sampling is the number of times per second you dip your finger into the flowing water.
The more often you dip your finger into it, the more “continuous” the temperature changes become.
That’s the basic idea behind sampling.
Bit depth is a little trickier.
Instead of using your finger, let’s say you used a really crapper thermometer.
It basically said “Hot” for anything above room temperature and “Cold” for anything below.
More useful, right?
As previously mentioned, PCM is the foundation for digital audio, along with its variants.
PCM attempts to model a waveform, in as much of its uncompressed glory as possible.
Most other formats manipulate audio via algorithms, so they need to be decoded while playing.
Typically, you’re seeing about half the size of WAVs.
An average “CD quality” MP3 runs about 1 MB per minute.
Big difference compared to PCM, no?
Higher numbers means that more data is being pumped out, so there’s more preservation of detail.
Here are some details for the more popular formats.
Lossy formats are what you use for all of the stuff you listen to and store.
They’re designed to be an economy of hard drive space.
Apple sticks to MP3, ALAC, and AAC.
Isn’t Audio Quality Subjective?
Absolutely, it is.
To my ears, there was no noticeable difference.
set of headphones, I went back to audio CDs full time!
It also depends on the genre of music.
Image byjonchoo
There are a LOT of variables here, folks, make no mistake about that.
It took a while before I settled on using FLAC for some music and 320kbps MP3 for the rest.
There’s a whole world of sound out there, so don’t get discouraged!
