Digital audio formats
PCM rates, DSD families, lossless containers and the MQA format — what each does and what plays it back.
MQA (Master Quality Authenticated)
Proprietary lossy-hybrid format: folds high-frequency content into the lower bits of a 24/44.1 or 24/48 PCM container, then unfolds in th…
WAV (Waveform Audio File Format)
Microsoft RIFF-based container for uncompressed PCM. Universal compatibility; weakness is no built-in tagging metadata (BWF extends WAV w…
FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec)
Free Lossless Audio Codec — the dominant lossless audio container. Bitstream typically 40–70% the size of equivalent WAV. Open-source (Xi…
DSD256 (11.2896 MHz)
Quad-rate DSD. Requires native DSD support over USB to pass — DoP encoding caps at DSD128 in most driver stacks. Increasingly common as a…
DSD128 (5.6448 MHz)
Double-rate DSD. The highest DSD rate that fits in DoP over USB-Audio-Class-2 ("DSD-over-PCM") without native DSD support — many DACs cap…
DSD64 (2.8224 MHz)
Direct Stream Digital, 1-bit pulse-density modulation at 64× the CD rate (2.8224 MHz). The SACD-native format. Trades bit depth for sampl…
PCM 32-bit / 384 kHz
Beyond-master PCM. 32-bit integer or float gives processing headroom; 384 kHz puts Nyquist at 192 kHz. Mostly relevant for digital-domain…
PCM 24-bit / 192 kHz
Doubled-rate PCM master format. Nyquist at 96 kHz allows softer reconstruction filters than 96 kHz. Common in classical and audiophile la…
PCM 24-bit / 96 kHz
The de-facto studio master format. 24-bit depth provides ~144 dB of theoretical dynamic range; 96 kHz sample rate provides a Nyquist limi…
PCM 16-bit / 44.1 kHz
CD-quality linear PCM. 16-bit quantization at 44,100 samples per second per channel, 1.411 Mbps stereo. The CD-DA reference (IEC 60908, 1…