You've taken a couple of weeks to work on the song, polish the arrangement and perfect the mix. You’re finally ready to show the whole world or send it to the studio for mastering. But before you can share it, you drop into the ultimate conundrum: which audio file format should you use? Don’t worry, in this article we’ve compiled the list of the 8 common audio file types out there and which one is better for you. Now, let’s find out together.

Top 8 common audio file formats

Audio file formats are different forms of compression, and the quality experienced by listeners at the receiving end is all different. If you just want to share a demo to try out, a smaller file format is generally required. But if you are a professional audio master with expensive audio equipment, always go with lossless compression. No matter what your needs are, there is an audio file format for you.

1. MP3: The most well-known audio formats offering universal compatibility that can be played anywhere. It is a popular lossy compression that provides small file sizes with a low quality of audio.

2. WAV: One of the first digital audio formats, it’s a lossless file format means that there is no data loss whatsoever. Also Wav files are uncompressed, so it should take up a large amount of disk space.

3. OGG: A lossy audio format supported by many media players ogg files are smaller in file size than mp3 files, but maintain good quality.

4. FLAC: Free Lossless Audio Codec is an audio format similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality.

5. MP2: MPEG-1 Audio Layer II is a lossy compressed audio format, mainly used in digital broadcasting and digital television broadcasting.

6. M4A: Known ad MPEG-4, a lossy audio format popular for its small file size and quality, M4A files are used by Apple devices such as iPod and iPhone.

7. AC3: Audio Codec 3 is a lossy audio compression that can compress audio streams by a factor of 10 to 12 and is widely used in applications such as TV broadcasting, satellite broadcasting, digital video streaming, DVDs, Blu-ray discs and game consoles.

8. WMA: WMA is also a lossy audio format. It’s mainly popular for its small file size. Many media players support WMA files, but its audio quality is lower than MP3 files.

Now, I would like to recommend using audio editors like KingShiper Audio Editor which support various audio file formats.

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What is the best audio format for sound quality?

The answer to this question depends on your needs. If you just need to export with high quality, the best audio formats are uncompressed or lossless compressed files like WAV, FLAC and M4A. These formats are maintain the original sound quality, although you have to live with the fact that these files will be very large.

In Conclusion