Audio formats: MP3, FLAC and more

In short: Audio formats store sound digitally. Lossy formats such as MP3 and AAC save space by dropping details we barely hear. Lossless ones such as FLAC preserve the original completely.

In more detail: Uncompressed audio (WAV, CD quality: 44.1 kHz, 16 bit) is very large, about 10 MB per minute of stereo.

In detail

• MP3: Widespread, 128–320 kbit/s. From about 192 kbit/s hardly distinguishable from the original for most people.
• AAC: More efficient than MP3, used in streaming and by Apple.
• Ogg Vorbis and Opus: Open formats; Opus is excellent for speech and streaming.
• FLAC: Losslessly compressed, saves about half compared with WAV but is not worse in sound.
• Bitrate and sampling rate: The higher, the more accurate but larger (schall-und-dezibel).
• Audibility: Playback devices and listening environment are decisive.
• Archiving: For originals prefer lossless storage (dateiendungen-und-dateitypen-woran-man-dateien-erkennt).