Audio Format

0	What is the best Audio Format to use? sound audio music songs format asked Feb 19 '11 at 12:32 mdieffenbach3 161●29●30●38

5 Answers:

oldest newest most voted

Best Audio format is lossless codec like FLAC. The only downside is that it has a big filesize but no loss of audio from compression.

For a smaller file, mp3 is the best

answered Feb 19 '11 at 12:45

kevin ♦♦
35.7k●160●316●588

FLAC may be "okay", but the only problem is getting "most" media players to play those files without going through the hassle of installing some sort of plugin.

(Feb 19 '11 at 23:45) Rizzy

It really depends on what you're using it for. Hardcore audiophiles prefer FLAC files, but for anyone else they're just a pain. High quality audio can be gotten from any uncompressed format, including AIFF and WAV. Most of the time, an MP3 file is what you'll want to go for. MP3 files are amazingly small in size, and their quality is usually quite good, although there can be some loss of quality if it's compressed too much.

answered Feb 19 '11 at 12:50

Zagorath
316●6●10●16

What is KBPS? Like for example MP3 128 KBPS? Does this setting matter?

answered Feb 19 '11 at 13:06

mdieffenbach3
161●29●30●38

KBPS is kilobyte per second. It makes a matter if you want to hear quality sounds or have small file size

(Feb 19 '11 at 18:11) kevin ♦♦

That is if it isn't filled with 0 bytes aka padding :P

(Feb 19 '11 at 19:16) nitrocrime

It depends upon which operating system you use, for Linux FLAC is the best, for Winodws MP3 is the best, for Mac iTunes. (Don't know much about Mac, I could be wrong about iTunes)

There has been a lot of development on this front, nevertheless, MP3 I would say is the all around best format because most devices can play MP3, with the excpetion of Apple devices, they require iTunes.

Hope this was helpful.

answered Feb 19 '11 at 18:06

_GTech
1.3k●16●23●43

edited Feb 19 '11 at 19:24

TheTechDude
(suspended)

I hate being a Nazi about this sort of thing but...

MAC? As in MAC Cosmetics? Or perhaps Media Access Control address?

It would be nice if people learned once and for all that Apple builds the Macintosh computer which can be properly shortened to "Mac" for brevity sake. However, we use a lot of acronyms where MAC can mean all kinds of things.

I hope you understand.

(Feb 19 '11 at 18:13) dualdflipflop

On the Mac I would usually recommend MP3 still, but AAC is another very good and popular format.

(Feb 19 '11 at 22:02) Zagorath

Sorry I'm not an Apple / Mac fan, I say MAC as in Macintosh, but mean Apple, really... I know little about this company because I don't like Apple at all..

(Feb 20 '11 at 01:03) _GTech

MP3 will still be the industry standard for quite a while, simply because it is the most accessible. Can you play FLAC on your iPod......?

I have backed up all of my CD collection in 192/24 (24-bit) WAV format for "archive" purposes, and down-sampled them all to 320Kbps for "general" storage on the iMac. At 320Kbps it is EXTREMELY difficult to hear a difference, and though "I" can, for simple listening in the background while working or burning a CD for someone else, it's just fine, and you wouldn't even know it was MP3 format.

I would not recommend going any lower than 128Kbps. That's where you'll start to hear the "warble" sound I like to call it...basically low sampling garble.

answered Feb 19 '11 at 23:50

Rizzy
4.4k●19●42●89

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