The Sound of Music
In today's digital age, there are many file formats for all that music we're listening to. The most popular formats are WAV, MP3, MP4, and WMA. Each of these file types has benefits and drawbacks.
WAV files are a standard format most commonly used for audio CDs. An uncompressed WAV file often requires 10 MB per minute of music. This makes the average 3-minute song file about 30MB! That can add up to a lot of space to store your music, especially when looking at storing many songs. But with that large file comes excellent sound quality, which will deliver great sound on high-end systems.
For today's personal music players and most computer systems, you can save 70-90% of the space needed per song while still maintaining good quality sound by using compressed audio files. MP3, MP4, and WMA are three of the most popular file types utilized for compressed audio files. These files typically require about 1MB per minute of music, and can deliver pretty good sounding music when played on today's personal music players (IPOD, RIO, etc.).
By far the most popular format MP3, a common source employed almost universally for compressed audio files. MP4 has been embraced by Apple for iTunes and iPod usage due mainly to the ability to restrict access and distribution of the files. This means that the songs you buy from iTunes will be restricted to play only from your iTunes or an associated iPod. Windows Media Audio (WMA) is the brand name for several audio formats developed by Microsoft. The original "WMA Standard" has become the second most widely supported format for compressed audio.
Each of these file formats can deliver quality sound to modern digital media. Depending on your available storage space and type of digital media player, one or all of these formats will suit your needs.
