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Chances are, if you are listening to music on your computer right now, the files are in the mp3 format. Mp3 files seem to be the most popular nowadays, but there are many other formats out there that don’t get noticed due to the success of mp3. The most common audio formats include:

• mp3 – MPEG Layer-3. The most popular format for downloaded music. Removes inaudible parts of the file to decrease size and maintain good quality.
• wav – Used for storing CD quality sound files. These files are huge, at around 10MB/min. If you rip songs off of a cd in windows, you will have wav files for each track.
• wma – Microsoft’s “Windows Media Audio” format. Includes DRM abilities.
• aac – iTunes’ standard audio format. Achieves greater quality than mp3 at equal bit rates.
• midi - Not commonly used for listening. Allows electronic musical instuments to comunicate with computers.
• ogg – Free open source format. Most commonly uses the codec “Vorbis”. Comparable to mp3 in terms of quality. Popular among Linux users, as it is free.
• flac – Most common format for lossless compression. Free. Maintains identical sound quality while reducing size by nearly 50%. Popular among Linux users, as it is free.

There you have it, 7 of the most common audio file formats, covering propreitary formats, free/open formats, and lossless audio formats. You can use this to decide what type of files may be right for you. Personally, i used FLAC, so i can maintain superior qualtiy, without my music taking up a lot of space.

You can learn more about the FLAC audio format at http://flac.sourceforge.net/

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