FLAC, WAV, AIFF, DSD … these are just some of the acronyms you can find when looking for a digital format. They are also accompanied by technical data such as sample rates and bit depth. So many terms can leave you more misplaced than a chicken in a dance. And unless you are an expert in digital sound, the process to choose the audio format that best suits your needs can be a mess. But if they explain it to you, the subject is relatively simple. That is why in Culturasonora we have prepared a complete guide on the different audio formats used. This will prevent any acronym from taking you on the dark side, dear Padawan.
Sample Rate and Bit Depth.
MP3s vs WAVs vs AIFF.
OGG vs FLAC vs ALAC.
What is the DSD format?
How to listen to the DSD?
MQA audio Hi-Res.
What is Bit Depth and Sample Rate?
These two concepts are basic. To understand how audio formats work, you need to know what Bit Depth and Sample Rate are. They are two measures that indicate the quality of a digital audio file. We will try to summarize it so that you stay with the general idea
When you read the specifications of the audio formats you find a couple of figures. For example: 32-bit / 192kHz or 24-bit / 96kHz. These numbers indicate the bit depth and the sample rate. These references tell us how much information the different formats transmit and the sound quality. For example, the audio we hear on a normal CD, or on a Spotify stream, is 16bit / 44.1kHz. Samples are always measured in Hertz (or hertz) and bit depth in Bits.
Softwares or hardwares do not usually work with a continuous flow of information but often use pieces, samples or samples to effectively manage the data that is transmitted. The sample rate is the number of samples per second that are obtained from a recording. The higher the number of times a device plays the samples, the higher the sound quality. Each of these extracts or samples has a certain amount of information, which is the bit depth, or bit depth.
To understand it better, we are going to make a slightly beast analogy, which is not entirely true, but which will help you to make sense of all this. What interests us. If you control a bit of photography and image you will get it right away: the sample rate would be something similar to the frames or frames per second of a video, and the bit rate would be similar to the pixels of a photograph. The higher the bit depth number, the more information each sample will have. The more pixels an image has, the more resolution each frame of a video will have. The more frames per second a movie has, the greater the definition. In short: the higher the number of the Bit Depth and the Sample Rate, the higher the quality of the audio file.
Audio formats: MP3 vs WAV vs AIFF
What is the MP3 format?
If you are interested in getting some audio fidelity and decent sound from your files, you will want to avoid this format. Why? Because basically an MP3 is a file that sacrifices audio quality to minimize size. They weigh very little for any device to read. The negative? The compression of these files provides a poor, almost lifeless sound. Nowadays almost nobody uses that format seriously. Even its creators recently finished the license declaring her dead. But surely every now and then you find a zombie file with this format.
What is the WAV format?
WAV (Waveform Audio File Format) are equally common but better for anyone who wants a decent audio format. They are higher resolution files than MP3s. A WAV is an audio piece that is encoded with something known as Pulse Code Modulation (PCM), a medium that encodes analog audio parts and converts them into digital so that they can have the Sample rates and the Bit Depth of the that we have talked about before.
What is the AIFF format?
The audio format AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) is very similar to WAV, since it also uses the PCM to encode analog audio pieces and present them in digital format. This format was born as an answer from Apple to the Microsoft WAV, and at the beginning it could only work on MAC computers. Currently, the AIFF and WAV are more or less interchangeable.
In summary…
To close this topic we will tell you that if you have a file in WAV or AIFF audio formats you will hear a piece of good quality sound. Normally these formats are used in files that we play through our services, such as the iTunes music library. We will not see them in online streaming services, which tend to use special types of files. Now we will review that point
