MP3

The most popular format ever, it stands for MPEG1 Audio Layer 3. It is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression. It utilizes a preset sampling rate and file size ratio to control the degree of file compression ratio. Also its audio are compressed in a ratio of 1:10 or 1:12 with the sampling rate 44.1 kHz and bit rate at a average of about 112 kbits/s, resulting a poorer quality of certain parts of the sound. It’s more obvious when listening to classical music.

With the fact that it has a smaller footprint, it is more convenient to transfer among each other and save file space.

Pros: Small file size and good for transferring via the Internet.

Cons: Music loss due to the compression nature of the MP3. Poorer sound quality.

Ogg Vorbis

Ogg is a free, open standard container format which can obtain streams encoded with multiple codecs. Being a container format, Ogg can embed audio formats in various format, however it was intended and usually used with the following free codecs like Vorbis.

Vorbis is a lossy audio compression and is usually used in conjunction with the Ogg container format, hence it is often referred to as Ogg Vorbis. It can handle general audio data at mid- to high-level variable bitrates (~16 - 500 kbits/s per channel). Its higher fidelity and completely free nature, unencumbered by patents, making it a well-suited replacement for patented and restricted formats like MP3. However, MP3 has been widely used since the late 1990s and it remains as popular as ever in the consumer electronics industry.

Pros: Higher music quality and small footprint.

Cons: It is not widely popular in the consumer electronics market. Does not natively supported by iPod. It requires 3rd party support.

AAC

AAC stands for Advanced Audio Coding and is usually referred to as MPEG-2 Part 7. It is able to include 48 full bandwidth audio channels in one stream plus 16 low frequency effects (LFE, limited to 120 Hz) channels, up to 16 “coupling” or dialog channels, and up to 16 data streams. The compression ratio is 30% more efficient than MP3. It gains wide acceptance from the public and is the default audio format of Apple’s iPhone, iPod , iTunes and the format used for all iTunes audio.

Pros: Good sound quality, small file size.

Cons: Patent license is required for all manufacturers and developers

RA / RM / RMX

These three formats are developed and patented by Real Networks. They can be operated under a lower bandwidth environment and can still achieve a decent performance, which makes it a popular choice for audio streaming. The three formats are RA (Real Audio), RM (Real Media) and RMX (Real Audio Secure).

Pros: Small file size and good for audio streaming.

Cons: Limited support from the market and sound quality not as good as other digital audio format.

WMA

Windows Media Audio is a digital audio format developed by Microsoft. Its compression ratio is up to 1:18. Comparing to MP3, the sound quality is better for the same file size. WMA supports DRM (Digital Right Management) which can control the number of time can be played or copied.

Pros: Fast compression, small file size.

Cons: Does not natively supported by iPod.

FLAC

Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) is a lossless audio data compression format. During compression, FLAC does not lose quality from the audio stream unlike MP3, AAC and Vorbis.

FLAC reduces bandwidth and storage requirements without sacrificing the integrity of the audio source. A digital audio recording encoded to FLAC can be decompressed the audio source. A digital audio recording encoded to FLAC can be decompressed into an identical copy of the audio data. Audio sources encoded to FLAC are typically reduced to 50-60 of the original size. It is suitable for everyday audio playback and archival, with support for tagging, cover art and fast seeking. Now it’s widely adopted by software developers and hardware manufacturer. Most of the digital audio players are supported. The highest sampling rate can be supported is 32 bit and 66.5 kHz sampling rate.

Pros: Retains the original audio fidelity.

Cons: Larger file size; not supported by iPod.

WAV

It is short for Waveform audio format and also know as Audio for Windows. This is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. The uncompressed WAV files are inherently quite large in size, which affect the popularity during the Internet age. If the file size is not one of your concern, it can deliver high quality and uncompressed audio quality. Also, if time is not allowed for any compression, WAV could be your choice.

WAV file has its limitation on the file size and is capped as 4 GB due to its use of a 32 bit unsigned integer to record the file size header.

Pros: Uncompressed, retain the original sound fidelity. Good for audio editing.

Cons: Larger file size.

AIFF

AIFF, stands for Audio Interchange File Format, is an audio file format standard used for storing sound data. The format was co-developed by Apple Computer and Electronic Arts. The audio data is uncompressed pulse-code modulation (PCM), lossless and consumes about 10 MB for one minute of stereo audio at a sample rate of 44.1 kHz and a sample size of 16 bits.

Pros: Uncompressed and ability to store music information.

Cons: Larger file size,  about 10 MB for a minute. It mainly uses in Mac.

Apple Lossless

Apple Lossless encoded data is stored within an MP4 container and can be played by all current iPod players. It is a technology similar to other lossless codec such as FLAC developed by Apple for their lossless data compression implementation. With this encoding, the audio files are compressed and used up about 40% to 60^ of the storage space of the uncompressed file.

Pros: It is a widely adopted in the Mac and iPod family. Excellent sound quality and retain its original fidelity.

Cons: Large file size. Limited support other than Mac and iPod.

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