Introduction into audio formats

Audio format defines the way your audio files will be encoded and balance between the quality and the size. The goal of every new format invented is to reach higher quality of sound, reduce the time to encode the file and make file occupy less of disk space. One-click CD Converter supports six most popular audio formats. They are: WAV, MP3, WMA, OGG, APE and FLAC

WAV (Windows Audio format)

This is the oldest audio format for Windows. When you encode your audio into WAV files you get completely uncompressed soundtrack that occupies lot of disk space. But it's very fast to encode/decode and doesn't reduce original quality. The WAV format is recommended for someone who need to save original CD quality and ready to keep approximately 30-40mb of data per track.

MP3 (MPEG Layer-3 format)

MP3 is the most popular audio format with compression. Its algorithm allows to encode soundtracks into compressed files, that occupy less of disk space. Balance between quality of sound and file size can be configured. MP3 files may sound very similar to original CD if they use maximum quality. But even with the maximum quality set this format cannot save original CD quality. MP3 format is recommended in most cases because of its popularity.

WMA (Windows Media Audio format)

This format was developed by Microsoft as a rival of MP3. In some cases WMA can provide better quality or smaller size of files with the same quality as MP3. All popular audio players supports WMA, so it may be recommended as an MP3 replacement in some cases.

OGG (OGG Vorbis format)

New audio format that provides better quality than MP3 or WMA. Very good decision for someone, who really need CD quality and can distinguish qualitative MP3 or WMA compression from original CD. OGG vorbis format can ensure the quality that is much close to the original CD. There are some audio players which still not support OGG, but the most popular of them already support this format.

APE (Monkey's Audio format)

This lossless format allows to get compressed files without quality loss. In fact your files will save original CD quality and will occupy less of disk space than WAV files. However their size will be bigger than files of MP3, WMA and OGG formats. APE format is a good choice for someone who needs modern WAV replacement or to make copies of audio CDs on hard disk. It has a bit better compression rate and encoding speed than FLAC format(see below).

FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Coding format)

FLAC is a lossless format, so its files keep original CD quality and required more free space than formats with quality loss such as MP3 or WMA. However, FLAC files are good choice to keep your audio if you prefer WAV format due to its quality, since filesize of FLAC format is less than WAV. Also, FLAC format is supported by some hardware players.