Lossy and Lossless Audio Formats

Digital music files today are classified into 2 main categories; lossly and lossless, after they are converted from CD quality music. Before we move further, let's explore the actual definitions of lossless and lossy.

(find out more about audio file formats...)

Lossless - the file that is converted from the original track does not lost its quality. The reproduction of these lossless files is normally quite large per song.

Lossy - the converted file is normally in a compressed format, thereby losing some of the original quality. The tradeoff is that, the file sizes are generally very small and it is possible store a large number of files into a 1GB audio player.

Some of the audio file formats are listed below:

• AAC: Lossy - for Apply gizmos, such as iPod and iPhone.
• FLAC: Lossless - does not belong to any brand.
• MP3: Lossy - most popular and widely used by audio players.
• M4A: Lossless - for Apply gizmos, such as iPod and iPhone.
• WAV: Lossless - used in most players.
• WMA: Lossy - for Microsoft compatible players, such as Windows Media Player.

As such, it is important to know what you need. Do you require the original quality of the audio file, or should one that is sufficient for comfort and portable listening? The direct tradeoff is, the higher the quality, the larger the file size.